THE Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) has fully awarded the P20 billion on offer during its first auction for Treasury bonds (T-bonds) for 2019 on Tuesday, opening its tap facility to accommodate the oversubscription.
National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said the auction committee saw the strong appetite of investors for longer-dated securities with bids for the maiden issuance of 10-year T-bonds amounting to as much as P52.989 billion.
“For the opening salvo of our T-bonds auction, we are very much pleased with the results and the participation of our GSEDs [government securities eligible dealers], so we see that the appetite now is really toward the long-end, on the 10 years this time. And also because of the significant downtrend of inflation and even in terms of the path, [there are] expectations that it will continue to go downhill,” de Leon said.
This prompted the auction committee to award in full the P20 billion on offer at a coupon rate of 6.875 percent, as well as open its tap facility on the same day.
“And we also see that there is liquidity onshore, as well. Hopefully, for the next auctions, it will be replicating these kind of auction outcomes,” she added.
The BTr issued a memorandum opening its tap facility to its 10 market makers following the primary auction for the 10-year T-bonds on Tuesday, with the facility being available from 2 to 4 p.m., with the auction committee posting the results by 5 p.m. The volume is still P20 billion at a 6.857-percent rate.
The 10 market makers are BDO Unibank Inc., Bank of the Philippine Islands, China Banking Corp., Citibank Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines, First Metro Investment Corp., Land Bank of the Philippines, Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co., Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. and Security Bank Corp.
On Monday, the BTr also opened its tap facility for the 364-day Treasury bills (T-bills) offering the same P8 billion as bids reached P15.849 billion for the IOU during the primary auction. But results for the auction fell flat as the BTr was only able to award P300 million through the tap facility.