By Emese Bartha
Austria issued 5 billion euros ($5.27 billion), including an EUR500 million tranche to be retained by the state, in new February 2033-dated government bonds via a bank syndicate on Wednesday, one of the lead manager banks said.
The order book closed at EUR32.1 billion, including EUR2.9 billion joint lead manager interest, representing the biggest order book size achieved for any 10-year Austrian government bond on record, the Austrian Treasury said in a statement.
The spread on the bond was set 8 basis points above mid-swap. The bond, which has a 2.900% coupon, was priced at 99.194 at a yield of 2.993%, the Austrian Treasury said.
Distribution was broadly diversified by investor type, order size and region, the Austrian Treasury said, adding that 247 different investors participated in this transaction. This is the highest number of investors in any 10-year Austrian benchmark transaction so far, re-affirming the breadth and quality of Austria's investor base, the Austrian Treasury said.
The geographical breakdown of investors showed that 62% of the allocation went to eurozone-based investors, with particularly good interest from France, Germany and Netherlands, the Austrian Treasury said. European investors based outside the eurozone took up 22% of the issue, while 8% was allocated to investors in America and 8% to Asia and Middle East.
"The higher absolute yield level led to a slight change in the investor base, with a strong participation of real money investors, especially central banks/official institutions as well as pension funds and insurance companies, in this transaction," the Austrian Treasury said.
Austria plans to issue EUR45 billion in government bonds this year, the Austrian Treasury said in December when it published its funding plan for 2023.
Lead managers of the transaction were Barclays, BofA, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs Bank Europe, J.P. Morgan and UniCredit.
Write to Emese Bartha at emese.bartha@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
01-04-23 1440ET
