ZCZC
BCN-21
GREECE-BONDS-SALE
Greece raises 2.5 bn euros in first bond sale since bailout
ATHENS, Jan 30, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Greece on Tuesday raised 2.5 billion
euros (2.9 billion) from a five-year-bond, its first since exiting the last
bailout, the finance minister said.
“This is 36 percent of our requirements for 2019,” finance minister Euclid
Tsakalotos said in parliament, according to the state-run Athens News Agency.
The yield was set at 3.6 percent, Tsakalotos said.
Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs International Bank, HSBC, JP Morgan, Morgan
Stanley and Societe Generale were named as managers of the bond, which has an
April 2024 maturity.
The previous five-year bond, in July 2017, raised 3.0 billion euros at
4.625 percent.
Greece currently has no urgent need to draw money from the bond markets as
it has built a cash cushion of at least 15 billion euros.
“Our financing needs are fully covered to 2020,” Prime Minister Alexis
Tsipras told parliament earlier this month.
But it acts as a psychological milestone, designed to show that the
country is on the road to recovery after emerging from its third
international debt bailout in August.
In a statement concluding its first post-bailout monitoring mission on
Friday, the International Monetary Fund pegged Greek growth this year at 2.4
percent.
The Greek budget forecasts 2.5-percent growth, better than the expected
eurozone average.
The Greek public debt in 2018 climbed to 335 billion euros, or 180.4
percent, of GDP. It is forecast to fall to 167.8 percent in 2019.
BSS/AFP/HR/0958