LONDON (MNI) – Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA)
said it sold E3.461 billion of the 5.40% 2025 Treasury bond to the Irish
Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) at a price of 88.11 and yield 6.81%.
The total consideration for this transaction is E3.060 billion and
will be used to settle the promissory note liability due to IBRC on Mar
31, the NTMA said.
The bonds will issue and settle on Monday, April 2, added the NTMA.
Following the transaction, the amount outstanding of the 5.40% 2025
Bond will rise to E11.746 billion, according to the debt agency.
The announcement comes after Ireland announced Thursday that it had
struck a deal with its bailout lenders to replace the E3.06 billion cash
payment due on March 31 with a long-term government bond. The deal
marked the first step in an effort to restructure debts tied largely to
the rescue of Anglo Irish Bank, the lender at the heart of Ireland’s
financial crisis.
Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan earlier Friday told MNI on
the margins of the informal meeting of Eurozone finance ministers and
central bankers in Copenhagen: “We don’t want this coming up year after
year. We want the settlement of the totality of the promissory notes in
the course of 2012.”
“We see the issue moving on now to the issue of the promissory
notes in general,” Noonan said in the interview.
“In the course of 2012 we hope to commence serious negotiations to
see if we can get an arrangement to replace the promissory notes that is
less burdensome on the Irish taxpayer.”
Under the terms of the deal announced Thursday, Ireland will give a
bond to IBRC, which was created last year through the merger of Anglo
Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society, in lieu of the E3.06
billion cash payment. IRBC can then use the bond to reduce the
assistance that it has received from the Central Bank of Ireland.
–London Newsroom: +44 20 7862 7494; email: nshamim@marketnews.com
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