site.btaCentral Bank Places Securities for BGN 200 Million

The Ministry of Finance has reopened a three-year government securities (T-bills) issue that was put into circulation at an auction held on April 15, the Ministry of Finance and the Bulgarian National Bank said.

At Monday's auction, new securities were issued for BGN 200 million, bringing the total amount in circulation to BGN 900 million face value. The weighted average annual yield at reopening was 3.64%.

The issue is denominated in BGN, matures on April 17, 2027 and has an annual interest coupon of 3%.

The orders submitted amounted to BGN 344.2 million, which corresponds to a coverage ratio of 1.72. The reported spread over similar German federal bonds was 114 basis points. On the participants' side, banks acquired the largest amount of government securities at the auction - 68.8%, followed by insurance companies - 14.8%, pension funds with 13.2%, mutual and guarantee funds - 3.1% and other investors - 0.1%, the Ministry said.

The average price of the orders admitted to the auction was BGN 98.20 per BGN 100 nominal.

The BNB noted that the payment date for the approved amount is July 24. Interest is payable every six months from the issue date, with the last payment being made together with the repayment of the nominal value of the issue.

All eight primary dealers of the Notes participated in the auction.

The BNB announcement also stated that the Treasury would offer additional quantities of the issue for sale.