Latest Greek government bond issue oversubscribed by 12 times; re-offer yield at 0.888%

A 10-year Greek government bond floated on Wednesday attracted a final order-book in excess of €30.0bn, over-subscribing the issue 12-fold, and marking biggest order- book for any syndicated transaction by the Greek state.

The Greek state priced a €2.5bn tap of its outstanding June 2031 government bond (GGB), taking the total outstanding to €6.0bn. The tap was priced at a re-offer yield of 0.888 percent, equating to a re-offer price of 98.685 percent.

The eyebrow-raising foray comes despite the Greek state being two or three steps below “investment grade”, as it is rated Ba3 Moody’s / BB S&P / BB Fitch / BB (low) DBRS (stb / pos / stb / stb).

The coupon ended at 0.750 percent Fixed, Annual ACT/ACT, 0 interest accrued.

According to the Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA) more than 300 investors participated, with so-called “real money” investors covering 69 percent of the issue; 6 percent by hedge funds; 22 percent by banks and 3 percent by central banks.

In a geographic breakdown, 24 percent of investors were from the UK; 19 percent from France; 13 percent from Germany; 9 percent from Scandinavian countries; 8 percent from Italy; 8 percent from Greece; 5 percent from Portugal and 4 percent from Spain.

Joint bookrunners on the transaction were BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE, HSBC, J.P. Morgan and Nomura.