Ireland set for imminent return to bond markets

The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) is readying a 10-year syndicated government bond issue, which may be issued as early as tomorrow morning. The issue, which will likely range between €3 and €5 billion, will mark Ireland's first foray into the bond markets since exiting the IMF/EU bail-outprogramme in December.

Ireland is fully funded out to the second quarter of 2015, but the NTMA has indicated that it would borrow €6-10 billion this year.

The NTMA said today that it expects the transaction to be "launched and priced in the near future" and that it has mandated Barclays, Citi, Danske bank, Davy, Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley as joint lead managers on the deal.

Irish 10-year bond yields were trading at about 3.4 per cent yesterday, indicating tha the government may be able to fund itself at below 4 per cent.