FinMin Starts Preparations for Eurobond Issue
Bulgaria's government said it authorised finance minister Simeon Dyankov to start preparations for issuing euro-denominated government securities on the international capital markets.
The new eurobond issue could be up to 2.0 billion levs ($1.34 billion/1.02 billion euro) or its equivalent in other currency, the government said in a statement on Wednesday, following a regular weekly meeting.
The new issue will be 950 million euro ($1.25 billion) with a maturity of either five or seven years, daily Dnevnik quoted Dyankov as saying after the meeting.
According to the country's finance minister, the issue will have significantly lower annual yield than the 7.5% on euro global bond maturing in January 2013, due to the strong competition between the financial institutions.
In March, Dyankov said that Bulgaria is considering launching the issue by early June in order to repay the 816 million euro global bond maturing in January.