9 April 2014 Last updated at 14:38 GMT
Greece returns to debt markets with five-year bond
Greece is to sell five-year bonds in the country’s first long-term debt sale since its international bailout started four years ago.
The news came as thousands of striking Greeks marched on parliament to protest against job and spending cuts.
“The Hellenic Republic announces today it has mandated international banks for an imminent five-year benchmark bond issue,” the finance ministry said.
The bond would be priced in “the immediate future”, it said.
Merkel visitMore than 20,000 people marched peacefully through the streets of Athens chanting: “EU, IMF take the bailout and get out of here!”
The 24-hour strike left schools and pharmacies shut, ships docked at ports and hospitals operating with only emergency staff.
Greeks have lost about a third of their disposable income since the debt crisis started and unemployment has soared, leaving more than one in four without a job.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to meet Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Athens on Friday. Germany has insisted on spending cuts and tax increases in return for loans.
Turnout at the march, which lasted two hours, was similar to protests held during the last nationwide strike in November, according to the Reuters news agency.
BailoutsIn April 2010, Greece could no longer fund itself and received two bailouts, including loans of 240bn euros (£200bn; $330bn).
The country’s economic output has shrunk by a quarter and unemployment remains close to 28%. There are fewer Greeks employed than at any time in the past 33 years.
In recent weeks, the Greek parliament agreed further austerity measures – including the sacking of 11,000 public sector workers – in exchange for the latest instalment of bailout money.
Greece may be returning to the market as the cost of borrowing is falling.
Last month, Greek lender Piraeus Bank sold its first bond in more than four years. The bond offered investors a yield of 5.125% and now trades with a yield of about 4.125%.
On Tuesday, Greece’s short-term borrowing costs were lower than a month ago, with interest rates on a six-month treasury bill sale falling to 3% from 3.6%.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26955983
Bailed-out Greece returned to bond markets with a bang on Thursday after a four-year exile, raising 3.0 billion euros and sending a major signal that the eurozone debt crisis is fading.
Shareholders enter the Bank of Greece headquarters in Athens as Bank of Greece governor delivers his annual report on the state of the economy on February 25, 2013
Greece’s EU-IMF creditors hailed the move which the Greek prime minister said had “opened the way for cheaper borrowing” for the recession-hit country.
“We have opened the way for cheaper borrowing on the markets tomorrow,” Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said in a televised address.
“If all goes well from now on, next time the country will be able to borrow higher sums at lower interest,” he said.
The finance ministry said Greece had sold the five-year bond at 4.75 percent interest, with participation of long-term investors outside Greece expected to approach 90 percent.
In Washington, IMF chief Christine Lagarde said the bond issue showed Greece was headed in the “right direction.”
“I see the issuance that took place today, which was massively oversubscribed, as an indication that Greece is heading in the right direction,” Lagarde told reporters at the World Bank/International Monetary Fund annual spring meetings.
EU vice-president Siim Kallas added: “It is an important sign that the Greek economy is starting to regain the confidence of investors, and reflects the positive effects of the far-reaching reforms undertaken by Greece.”
Deputy Greek Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos told reporters that the sale had been “at least eight times oversubscribed”.
The return to the medium-term debt market is a milestone for a country still suffering deeply from the effects of the crisis and resulting austerity reforms after two EU-IMF bailouts.
The last issue of five-year bonds four years ago carried an interest rate of 6.1 percent.
“One year earlier, nobody would expect (Greece) to stage such a fast return to international markets,” said Platon Monokroussos, chief market economist at Greece’s Eurobank, adding that he expected another debt sale in the second half of 2014.
Another analyst said the appetite for the Greek sale had been “jaw-dropping.”
It was timed a day before a scheduled visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and originally aimed to raise 2.5 billion euros ($3.6 billion).
Hours before the sale, a powerful car bomb exploded outside the Bank of Greece in central Athens but nobody was hurt as police had time to clear the area.
The vehicle, a stolen Nissan packed with 75 kilograms (165 pounds) of explosives, blew up around 0255 GMT as it was parked on the pavement facing a central bank building near headquarters, police said.
Internet news website Zougla and the Efymerida ton Syndakton newspaper were informed of the planned attack by telephone one hour beforehand.
The bond issue comes against a background of sharp falls in recent months in borrowing rates for other eurozone countries hit by debt problems. On Thursday Italy borrowed for 12 months at a record low rate of 0.589 percent.
Athens found itself frozen out of debt markets in 2010 after it revealed its public accounts had been falsified, and was forced to seek a bailout from the EU and IMF to avoid defaulting.
In return for the bailout funds, Greece has had to enact a host of deeply unpopular reforms including streamlining its bloated public sector.
The measures have sparked regular strikes and protests in a country suffering a sixth straight year of recession.
– Bond issue follows protests –
The announcement of the return to debt markets came on the same day as protesters launched the first anti-austerity strike of 2014, following five general strikes the previous year.
The strike shut ferry services to the country’s world-famous islands, disrupted air travel and closed pharmacies and government offices.
Unemployment in Greece is still at a record high.
On Thursday, the statistics agency said the jobless rate had increased to 26.7 percent in January, a 0.4-percent rise with nearly 15,000 jobs lost in a year.
It added that inflation fell 1.3 percent in March in an annual comparison.
The so-called “troika” of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF first bailed out Greece in 2010 with a programme worth 110 billion euros.
When that failed to stabilise the economy, they agreed a much tougher second rescue in 2012 worth 130 billion euros, plus a private-sector debt write-off of more than 100 billion euros.
Fiscal reform under EU-IMF tutelage has brought upgrades to Greece’s debt standing by ratings agencies in recent months — but Greek bonds still carry junk status.
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Sources:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101573688
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic…;
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/S…;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/fi…;
http://washingtonexaminer.com/harvard…;
April 11th, 2014
http://investmentwatchblog.com/
Tutti vogliono i bond dei Piigs. Cosa sta succedendo sui mercati?
I bond Piigs sembrano vivere una fase magica sui mercati, con i rendimenti all’asta in Grecia crollati sotto le attese e per i BoT a un anno sono scesi al minimo storico. Perché tutto questo miglioramento?
Giornata da incorniciare per il Sud Europa. Oggi è stato il gran giorno del ritorno della Grecia sui mercati finanziari con l’emissione di un bond a medio-lunga scadenza (quinquennale), dopo quattro anni di assenza. Che l’esito sarebbe stato positivo era fuori dubbio, altrimenti il governo di Atene non avrebbe nemmeno lontanamente corso il rischio, ma forse nessuno immaginava il risultato all’asta: dai 2,5 miliardi di euro previsti come offerta, si è saliti a 3 miliardi e le richieste degli investitori istituzionali (gli unici, in prima battuta, a potere acquistare il bond) hanno ammontato a 20 miliardi di euro, 6,7 volte in più. Il successo è stato di tali proporzioni, che contro un’attesa di un rendimento medio lordo tra il 5% e il 5,25%, il tasso è sceso al 4,95%, ossia sotto la soglia psicologica del 5%.
APPROFONDISCI – Bond Piigs in festa, ma la ripresa non c’è e la disoccupazione è ai massimi
Ma non era solo la Grecia a doversi rifinanziare stamane sui mercati. L’Italia lo ha fatto con l’emissione di BoT a un anno per 7,5 miliardi di euro. Il rendimento lordo esitato è stato dello 0,589%, il nuovo minimo storico assoluto, aggiornando così il precedente record minimo dello 0,592% del mese scorso. Le richieste sono state per 10,2 miliardi.
Nel frattempo, lo spread BTp-Bund è a 163 punti base sulla scadenza a 10 anni, con i BTp decennali a rendere il 3,16%. Per la stessa scadenza, i titoli lusitani rendono ormai sotto il 4% e quelli in Grecia intorno al 6%. Meglio ancora fanno i titoli irlandesi al 3%, cioè più bassi dell’Italia.
Sembrano cronache dal Bengodi, invece, i Piigs, come sono stati ironicamente definiti i paesi con problemi di debito nell’Eurozona, non sembrano essere usciti del tutto dalla crisi, anche se certamente dalla fase più acuta.
Le ragioni del boom bond Piigs
Ma sui mercati c’è tantissima carta, che in qualche modo deve essere impiegata. Chi meglio dei titoli di stato periferici dell’Eurozona, che offrono rendimenti ancora allettanti, nonostante sembra essere stato scongiurato il pericolo di una rottura dell’euro? Il super-euro sta facendo il resto. Con la previsione che il cambio possa apprezzarsi ancora di più contro le altre valute, gli investitori fuori dall’Eurozona hanno tutta la convenienza ad investirvi in titoli.
Difficile prevedere se questo trend magico si protrarrà e per quanto tempo. Gli analisti non intravedono all’orizzonte nuove tensioni. In realtà, qualche scossone potrebbe arrivare a fine maggio, quando i mercati “scopriranno” quanto impopolare sia l’euro e l’Europa con le elezioni del 25 del mese.
Quanto all’altra possibile fonte di tensioni sui mercati – la svolta monetaria della Federal Reserve – con la pubblicazione delle minute di oggi dell’ultimo board sembra allontanarsi il momento in cui arriverà il rialzo dei tassi Fed. Insomma, che l’economia dell’Eurozona sia in stato comatoso continuerà ad importare poco e niente. La festa dei bond europei può proseguire.