FT on Wednesday reported that Greece’s five-year, three-billion-euro bond on Tuesday was the fifth most-traded euro-denominated sovereign debt in Europe.
According to the international media provider, in an article bylined by Mehreen Khan, the high trading recorded for the country’s first foray into the capital markets since 2014 “is a sharp change for Greece’s usually thinly-traded securities.”
Citing data by Trax, a subsidiary of MarketAxess, FT said 160 million euros of the bond changed hands on Wednesday, a day after the bond issue was floated.
The new paper will launch on Aug 1.
According to initial figures, 200 investors bought into the issue, half of which swapped previous debt, held in the form of a 2014 five-year bond issue, and enticed by a 40-million-euro premium offered by Athens.
In a breakdown cited by FT, who quoted data by Bond Radar, investors from the United States accounted for 44 percent of the new paper’s holders; 26 percent from the UK; 14 percent from Greece and 7 percent from France. The report states that hedge funds accounted for just less than a third of buyers (36 percent).
