Portugal wants to issue up to 1,250 million in short-term debt next week
The agency that manages the Portuguese debt will go to the market to place Treasury bills with a maturity of three and 11 months.
Portugal will return to the debt market next week. After announcing an adjustment in the funding programme due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the Treasury and Public Debt Management Agency – IGCP will issue short-term debt. It will be up to 1,250 million euros in Treasury bills (T-Bills).
“The IGCP will hold on April 15th two auctions of T-Bills lines maturing on July 17th, 2020 and March 19th, 2021, with an indicative global range amount of 1,000 million to 1,250 million euros,” announced the agency led by Cristina Casalinho.
The last time Portugal issued bonds with these maturities was on February 19th. At the time, the country placed 950 million euros in 11-month T-Bills, with an interest rate of -0.484% and demand 1.47 times above supply. In the case of three-month T-Bills, it obtained 300 million euros at a rate of -0.50%, a demand 3.49 times higher than supply.
Portugal has persistently financed itself in the short term with negative interest rates, but the Covid-19 outbreak has caused market disturbances and led the European Central Bank to extend the safety net with an emergency programme to allow euro countries to finance themselves during the Pandemic crisis.
