PH borrows $860M more through samurai bonds

The Philippines has sold in Japan some $860 million in yen-denominated samurai bonds across four tenors, or periods of redemption, that all fetched yields below 1 percent.

In a text message, National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said the samurai bonds were already priced on Friday.

For the three-year bonds, the government awarded some $284 million coupons of 0.18 percent.

It also sold some $196 million in five-year IOUs at 0.28 percent.

Seven-year debt papers with 0.43 percent interest fetched some $167 million.

Longer, or 10-year securities, fetched some $212 million at an interest of 0.59 percent.

Settlement will be on Aug. 15.

It was the second straight year that the Philippines ventured into the samurai debt market to reverse an eight-year absence as the country’s last issuance prior to 2018 was in 2010.

However, this year’s samurai bond sale was smaller than 2018’s $1.4 billion sold across three tenors.

The Bureau of the Treasury earlier planned to sell a minimum of $750 million and a maximum of $1 billion in samurai bonds.

De Leon had said that as the government underspent on public goods and services at the start of the year due to the squabble in Congress over corruption-laden pork funds that delayed approval of the P3.7-trillion 2019 national budget, there remained ample cash to fund priority programs and projects so there was no pressure to ramp up borrowings at the moment./tsb