BTr to offer first RTBs under Marcos

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The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) is set to offer its first retail treasury bond (RTB) issuance under the Marcos administration, based on initial reports.

While the BTr has yet to officially announce the offering, a teaser posted on the BTr’s Facebook page shows an investment option amounting to P5,000.

RTBs are sold in minimum denominations of P5,000 and integral multiples thereof.

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Details of the said teaser are set to be announced on August 23.

National Treasurer Rosalia de Leon was asked to confirm this in a Viber group with reporters, but she has yet to respond as of press time.

Michael Ricafort, Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. chief economist, said in an email the RTB issuance could be in “the hundreds of billions that could match or even exceed the previous record highs, at around P400 billion to P500 billion.”

“There is a chance for a large RTB issuance, given the recent strong appetite for the past month or so, as seen in the weekly treasury bonds auction with bids at more than P100 billion per week for almost all weeks since last month,” he said.

“Since local GS (government securities) yields/PHP BVAL (Bloomberg Valuation Service) long-end yields are still near the upper part of the cycle, these are attractive for investors to lock in at relatively higher yields, in view of higher inflation,” he added.

Ricafort said the large RTB issuance would temper or limit any downside on long-term GS yields/PHP BVAL yields for now, given the possible large upcoming RTB offering, as the yields already eased from the new pre-pandemic highs posted in the latter part of June 2022.

Previously, the BTr raised a total of P457.8 billion from its five-year RTB offering in March.

Of the said amount, P120.8 billion was awarded during the rate-setting auction in February 15, while an additional P337 billion was added throughout the two-week offer period.

The said RTB was settled on March 4, 2022, with a coupon rate of 4.875 percent. – Angela Celis

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