February 2 (SeeNews) - Romania on Thursday rejected all bids in a 600 million lei ($142 million/ 132 million euro) auction of Treasury bonds bills due on February 25, 2019, central bank data showed.
Bids were placed for a total of 560.5 million lei worth of government paper.
The issue will be reopened on Friday when the finance ministry hopes to raise 90 million lei in a non-competitive tender.
At the previous auction of the same T-bonds issue held at the beginning of January, the finance ministry sold a planned 500 million lei.
Also, at its latest 300 million lei T-bonds auction held at the end of January, the finance ministry sold only 146.8 million lei, well below target.
Raiffeisen Bank analysts commented on Thursday morning that investors' sentiment might turn negative, as some 300,000 people protested in Bucharest and other 69 cities against the government decree that eases or scraps penalties for corruption offences.
"Given the recent developments on domestic market, the approval of the controversial Emergency Ordinance on corruption offences and the large street protests, the investors’ sentiment against Romania is likely to be negative. On the secondary market yields for RON Government securities increased again yesterday," Raiffeisen Bank analysts said in a daily market report.
Details about the issue follow:
Auction date |
February 2 |
January 5 |
Amount offered (mln lei) |
600.0 |
500.0 |
Amount sold (mln lei) |
0 |
500.0 |
Total bids placed (mln lei) |
560.5 |
661.8 |
Bid-to-cover ratio |
0.93 |
1.32 |
Yield (%) |
- |
1.38 |
Romania's finance ministry plans to sell 3.9 billion lei worth of government securities in February , according to the debt issuance calendar for the month. The ministry also plans to sell an additional 315 million lei of government paper in non-competitive offers.
In January, the ministry sold 3.125 billion lei in domestic debt paper and an additional 315 million lei in non-competitive offers, in line with target. However, at some of the tenders, they sold less than planned as domestic political and social unrest intensify, and the budget draft is still suspended between the government and the parliament.
In 2016, the finance ministry sold roughly 45 billion lei in local currency-denominated securities and 775 million euro in euro-denominated domestic debt and raised 3.25 billion euro on global markets.
(1 euro= 4.5337 lei)
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