CYPRUS: 13-week T-bill oversubscribed, yield drops to 1.17%

The Cyprus government sold €100 mln worth of 13-week Treasury Bills on Monday, with the Finance Ministry’s Public Debt Management Office saying that bids were six times oversubscribed, pushing yields further down.

The PDMO said that tenders for a total amount of approximately €619 mln were submitted, with a weighted average yield of 1.17%. The accepted yields ranged between 1.00% and 1.25%.
This follows last week’s successful return to the bond markets when Cyprus raised €1 bln from a 10-year Eurobond (EMTN) with a yield of 4.25%. This was the government’s third attempt since 2011 when it was shut out of markets due to the economy’s spiralling contraction that prompted a €10 bln bailout rescue by the Troika of international lenders (ERC, ECB, IMF).
The government’s previous 13-week T-bill worth €100 mln yielded 1.58% on October 2, again significantly lower than the previous €100 mln auction on August 31 with a yield of 1.87% and the higher 2.18% for €144 mln of 13-week T-bills sold on July 2.