NTMA sells €1.5bn of bonds in first auction without Davy

The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) raised a further €1.5 billion on Thursday with a bond auction, taking the total value of benchmark bonds issued in the year to date to €7 billion.

The auction was the first to not feature Davy after the NTMA last week withdrew the stockbroker's mandate to act as a primary dealer of Government bonds, due to a bond-trading scandal dating back to 2014.

The latest auction consisted of the sale of two different Irish Government bonds. These were a 0 per cent treasury bond maturing in October 2031, and a 1.5 per cent bond maturing in May 2050.

Budget gap

The NTMA plans to raise €16-€20 billion in the bond markets in 2021 to cover a budget gap caused by the Government’s response to Covid-19 and potential fallout from Brexit.

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It carried out a €5.5 billion debt sale managed by a group of banks and brokerage firms in early January, with the 10-year bonds priced to carry a negative market interest rate, or yield, of minus 0.257 per cent.