By Joann Villanueva/Philippine News Agency
MANILA – The Bureau of the Treasury’s (BTr) auction committee made a full award for the freshly-issued three-year Treasury bond (T-bond) Tuesday following strong demand.
Demand for the debt paper reached PHP65.911 billion, more than thrice the PHP20 billion offering.
The T-bond fetched a coupon rate of 4.75 percent, lower than the 4.975 percent in the secondary market in Tuesday’s morning session.
National Treasurer Rosalia De Leon attributed the lower rates to the cuts in banks’ reserve requirement ratio (RRR) and expectations of further reduction in the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) policy rates.
Projections of a decline in domestic inflation rates after an uptick to 3.2 percent last May also boosted the risk appetite during the day, she said.
Meanwhile, De Leon said there was a “strong appetite” for the planed yen-denominated Samurai bond issuance based on the non-deal roadshow that Philippine officials attended in Japan last week.
She, however, said the tenor and timing of the debt paper are still being mulled.
She said Japanese investors are “very bullish” on the Philippine economy, especially after S&P Global Ratings upgraded its investment grade credit rating for the country to ‘BBB+’ with Stable outlook last April.
“And they would also see the liquidity in the market because if we are going to do more frequent issuances then we can also be in the index for Samurai bonds,” she added.
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