MANILA, Philippines - The government has set a daily allocation of P16.15 billion worth of retail Treasury bonds (RTBs) for its selling agents until the end of the offer period on March 1.
As of press time yesterday, it has already sold P48 billion worth of RTBs through its selling agents, data from the Treasury showed.
On Tuesday, the government kicked-off the sale of RTBs in a rate-setting auction where it sold an initial P20 billion worth of the paper.
The five-year RTBs fetched a coupon rate of six percent while the 10-year RTBs fetched a coupon rate of 7.375 percent.
With a daily volume of P16.15 billion, the government is expected to sell a total of roughly P100 billion by the end of the offer period including the P20 billion awarded during Tuesday’s auction.
Of the P16.15 billion, the government has allocated a maximum volume of P7.25 billion for the five-year bonds and P8.9 billion for the 10-year bonds.
Juanchito Dispo, executive vice president of First Metro Investment Corp., one of the underwriters for the debt sale, has said the volume could reach P100.
The P100 billion takes into account at least P20 billion which is expected to come from state-owned agencies.
The selling agents include Allied Banking Corp, BDO Capital, BDO Universal Bank, BPI Capital, China Bank, Deutsche Bank, Land Bank of the Philippines, Metro Bank, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp., United Coconut Planters Bank and FMIC.
The government is expected to issue RTBs again in the second half of the year to meet demand from retail and institutional investors.
The issuance of RTBs is part of the government’s savings mobilization program designed to make government securities available to retail investors and at the same time create savings consciousness among Filipinos. With RTBs, investors can buy the debt paper for a minimum amount of P5,000.