ATHENS/AMESTERDAM- Greece attracted strong support for its new 10-year bond on Tuesday, taking advantage of low yields to help buttress an economy badly damaged by the coronavirus outbreak.
Investor demand for the bond exceeded 16 billion euros. Its pricing was set at 160 basis points over the mid-swap level.
Greece will raise 3 bln euros from the sale, one of the lead managers said.
BNP Paribas, BofA Securities, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs International Bank, HSBC and J.P. Morgan act as joint lead managers for the new issue, maturing in June, 2030.
Yields on the country's 10-year bonds fell by about 10 basis points after the European Central Bank announced last week an increase of the size of emergency bond purchases by 600 billion euros to 1.35 trillion euros.
Athens raised a total of 4.5 billion euros from 15- and 7- year bond issues earlier this year. Government officials told Reuters in March that Greece planned at least two more bond issues by the end of the year to raise another 4 billion euros.
During its debt crisis, which broke out in late 2009, Greece was shut out of bond markets and borrowed heavily from euro zone states and the IMF on strict economic reform terms and spending cuts. Its third international bailout expired in 2018.
Four months ago Greece was expecting strong growth this year but the pandemic has turned its expectations upside down.
Its economy is now expected to shrink by 8-13%, mainly due to lower tourism revenues and a shutdown in financial activity in March-May, when it imposed a nationwide lockdown.
Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said last week that Athens does not plan to tap the ESM credit line - a bailout fund for governments in need of cheap cash to deal with the pandemic - and that it may decide later in the year if it will repay expensive IMF loans earlier than scheduled.
(Reporting by Lefteris Papadimas and Yoruk Bacheli; Editing by Giles Elgood) ((renee.maltezou@thomsonreuters.com; +30 210 3376439; Reuters Messaging: renee.maltezou.reuters.com@reuters.net))
