BTr to issue P108B worth of debt notes

The Bureau of Treasury (BTr) plans to issue a total of P108 billion in domestic debt notes in the third quarter.

The value of debt paper to be issued is lower by 1.4 percent from that of the previous quarter.

Similarly, the domestic borrowing plan for the quarter ending in September represents a decrease of 7.7 percent from the P117 billion slated in the same period last year.

The decrease in planned domestic borrowing came after analysts of Citigroup Global Markets declared that there was an “overborrowing” in the first quarter of 2012.

Also, the latest schedule of local borrowings showed a decrease in the offer size for the benchmark 91-day treasury bill, for which investors showed disinterest in the past few auctions.

From P2 billion, the government will now offer only P1 billion for the three-month treasury bill.

The difference was equally distributed and added to the offers of 182-day and 364-day bills—with a value of P2.5 billion and P4 billion per auction, respectively.

In a notice to dealers of government securities, National Treasurer Roberto B. Tan said the agency would offer in six fortnightly auctions a total of P6 billion in 91-day T-bills, P15 billion in 182-day bills and P24 billion in 364-day bills.

In the third quarter, the Treasury bureau will offer a batch of five-year bonds and another of 20-year notes. It will also offer 25-year bonds as well as two batches each of seven-year and 10-year notes.

Each batch of T-bond issues is worth P9 billion.

In a research note issued a few weeks ago, Citigroup said the Bureau of Treasury should consider borrowing more overseas to offset market worries that too much are now owed to domestic lenders.

“With a change in cash of P128.5 billion in the first quarter, after funding (expenditures) and regular amortization, having a budgetary surplus of P31 billion in April serves to reinforce our view that Treasury may have ‘overborrowed’ during that period,” Citigroup said.

Data from the Bureau of Treasury showed that in the first quarter, the government incurred a total of P242.16 billion in fresh domestic borrowing and P83.07 billion in new debts from abroad.