Some extra blurb:
IRELAND ANNOUNCES BOND SWITCH
The National Treasury Management Agency will announce switch terms from 4% Treasury Bond 2014 to a new 18 February 2015 bond. The announcement of terms will take place at 14.00 GMT today, 25 Jan 2012, on Bloomberg page NTMA2 and will contain the following information: -Price at which the NTMA will buy 4% Treasury Bond 2014 -Coupon of new bond maturing 18 February 2015 -Price at which the NTMA will sell the new bond maturing 18 February 2015 -The switch will be on a matched nominal-for-nominal basis
The basic idea is that Ireland pays out a slightly larger coupon for the benefit of bumping this bond beyond a wall of bond redemptions in 2014, to 2015, when it’s mostly paying off its EU-IMF loans. And distracting from Anglo Irish’s senior bonds getting paid off as well
Plus Ireland gets to say it’s the first peripheral to come back to the bond market…
Updated — It went pretty well! Statement from Ireland’s debt office:
25 January 2012 – The National Treasury Management Agency announces the results of today’s exchange offer in respect of the 4% Treasury Bond 2014.
Investors were offered the opportunity of exchanging their holdings of the existing 2014 bond for a new 4.5% Treasury Bond maturing in February 2015. Following strong interest in the bond exchange offer some €3.53 billion, or 30 per cent, of the 2014 bonds will be switched into the new 2015 bonds
(Expectations for the amount had been €2bn)