Ireland will seek to raise 3 to 4 billion euros with a new seven-year bond issue as soon as Tuesday, a market source said after the country's debt agency hired a syndicate of banks and brokers for the issue.

In the first quarter, Ireland issued 5 billion euros ($5.4 billion) of bonds out of the 10 to 14 billion euros it had planned to issue in 2020, before the government locked down the economy to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

The National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) said in a statement on Monday that it would launch the new seven-year benchmark government bond via a syndicate of banks in the near future subject to market conditions, language it regularly uses when kicking off a syndicated sale the next day.

Ireland has mandated BNP Paribas, BofA Securities, Cantor Fitzgerald Ireland, Danske Bank, Goldman Sachs International Bank and J.P. Morgan as joint lead managers, the NTMA said.

The country's central bank estimated last week that the cost of the fiscal measures introduced so far to shield the economy from the coronavirus outbreak was 8.2 billion euros while tax revenues had fallen sharply.

Last week, Ireland said it would have one syndicated issue and two bond auctions between April and June, its busiest quarter of bond issuance in more than two years, but did not set a new borrowing target.

The NTMA last week said it was well placed to address any borrowing challenges caused by the coronavirus pandemic, citing strong cash balances, investor appetite and European Central Bank measures.

Irish bond yields were broadly steady on Monday, slightly higher than their euro zone peers. Ireland's 10-year bond yield was last trading at 0.25%. (Reuters)

Source:www.businessworld.ie