The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) is planning to sell bonds worth between €12bn and €15bn in 2015. It intends to hold bond auctions on February 12th and March 12th. The borrowed money will be used to fund the exchequer and to repay more of Ireland's costly International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans.
Last year the country repaid €9bn to the IMF - Mr O'Connor says that the agency is hoping to repay an additional €9bn in 2015. The state borrowed €22.5bn from the financial institution in 2010.
On a conference call with the media, the NTMA’s director of funding and debt management, Frank O’Connor said that the country hopes to make savings of €1.5bn through the early repayment of IMF loans.
Ireland is paying an interest rate of almost 5 percent on these loans - last week the NTMA raised €4bn through a 7-year bond issue at a record low yield of 0.86 percent.
Frank O’Connor declined to speculate regarding future yields.
The NTMA finished 2014 with cash balances of over €11bn. Mr O'Connor reports that it is expected to carry cash balances of close to €10bn at the end of this year.
Treasury Bill auctions are due to take place on January 29th and March 19th. Details of these auctions will be announced on the Monday before each sale.
