Ireland to return to bond auctions on Thursday

Ireland will hold a benchmark 10-year bond auction this Thursday, March 13th, for the first time since September 21st 2010.

According to the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), it will auction the 3.40 per cent treasury bond 2024 with an auction size of €1 billion. The auction will open at 8am and close two hours later, and the auction has a settlement date of March 18th. The auction will be conducted on the Bloomberg Auction System and will be confined to recognised primary dealers. A non-competitive auction for 15 per cent of the amount sold in the competitive auction will immediately follow and will close at 10 am on Friday.

"The resumption of scheduled bond auctions builds on the phased re-entry to the capital markets achieved by the NTMA over the past two years and marks the full normalisation of Ireland's presence in the markets," John Corrigan, chief executive of the NTMA said.

Glas Securities said this morning that since the 2024 bond was issued via syndication in early January, it has been the most heavily traded bond on the Irish curve given its benchmark status.