France, Spain raise €12bn in debt sale
France and Spain yesterday sold over €12bn (£10bn) of debt yesterday, clearing a final hurdle in a big week of bond issuance in the Eurozone with issues meeting strong demand.
France sold €8.47bn of debt with demand seen at the top end of the range, with the average yield falling across all three issues made by the Treasury.
Around €30bn of issuance has come to market this week, with debt from core countries
such as Germany attracting solid interest, while smaller treasury note issues from
Portugal suffered from the heavy supply.
But fellow periphery country Spain comfortably sold its longer dated bond issues while
yields fell sharply from the last auctions of the bonds in June, reflecting improving sentiment as the country battles to control its deficit.
Spain sold €2.7bn worth of 10-year, 4.0 per cent coupon bonds and close to €1.3bn worth
of 30-year, 4.7 per cent coupon bonds, in line with the Treasury’s target of €3-4bn.
“It’s been a tremendous success and it improves the horizon for Spain’s issues heading into the final quarter. It seems that Spain is gaining more credibility in the market,” said a trader with knowledge of the Treasury’s sales.
The Treasury also paid much less to finance the re-issuing of the bonds from June, a moment when markets were more concerned that Spain would go the way of Greece.
The yield on the 10-year issue fell to 4.144 per cent from 4.864 per cent in June, while it eased to 5.077 per cent from 5.908 per cent on the 30-year issue.
A source also said that more than 50 per cent of the issues were sold to foreign investors, a sign of increasing confidence in Spanish debt.
The auctions followed Portugal’s sale of €750m of 12-month treasury bills, where yields rose sharply given concerns over the country’s budget discipline. The French auctions also attracted solid demand. The French treasury sold €3.15bn of September 2012 BTANs, €1bn of July 2013 paper and €4.313bn of July 2015 BTANs.