Appetite for 6-month T-bills pushes yield below 4-year mark

Cyprus sold €50 mln of 26-week treasury bills during its recent auction, which was oversubscribed by almost three times, pushing the yield down to an average 2.40%.

The yield was far below the 2.96% rate achieved in January 2011, just before Cyprus was shut out of international markets and sought a €10 billion Troika bailout due to a runaway fiscal deficit and banks over-exposure to toxic Greek government bonds.

The Public Debt Management Office at the Ministry of Finance said that Thursday’s bids for the 6-month T-bills topped €130.2 million, with an average accepted rate of 2.35-2.45%. For the rest of 2015, Cyprus has loan obligations of €1.79 billion, €736 million in 2016 and €1.5 billion in 2017.

In February, the 13-week T-Bills yielded 2.96% with the government accepting bids worth €125 million. The PDMO said that the auction was oversubscribed 1.67 times as it had received a total of €209 million of bids.

Source: Financial Mirror