Ireland raises €3.75bn in 10 year bond sale

Ireland's National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) said Tuesday it has raised 3.75 billion euros (5.10 billion U.S. dollars) through the syndicated sale of a new benchmark treasury bond maturing in March 2024. The funds were raised at a yield of 3.543 percent, the NTMA said in a statement. Set up in 1990, the NTMA is the agency that manages the government's assets and liabilities. Investor interest in Tuesday's issue was even broader than in the previous benchmark bond sale of March 2013. The order book included interest from over 400 fund managers, pension funds, insurance companies, banks and other investors, including some from the Middle East and Asia, the NTMA said, adding that the total book amounted to some 14 billion euros. Tuesday's 10-year bond sale is the NTMA's first capital market transaction since Ireland's clean exit from the EU/IMF bailout program on Dec. 15, 2013. The NTMA said the size of the final order book and the spread of investor interest across the globe demonstrated the appetite for Irish sovereign debt and Ireland's ability to fund its needs in the private debt markets. The NTMA restricted the size of Tuesday's deal to 3.75 billion euros in order to accommodate bond auctions in its funding program for the remainder of the year, it added. "Today's transaction is a real success that cements Ireland's return to the international debt markets and provides a strong platform for bond auctions in 2014," said NTMA Chief Executive John Corrigan.