“Fear Of Missing Out” – that is the only way one can explain the irrational idiocy with which asset “managers” are scrambling to allocate other people’s money into today’s “historic” Greek (where unemployment just printed at 26.7%) return to the bond market, and which according to Greek PM Venizelos was eight times oversubscribed, or far more demand than for the Facebook IPO. Ironically, while we joked earlier this week, when the Greek 5Y was trading in the 6% range that the new bond would issue at 3%, we were not too far off on the final terms which were largely expected in the mid-5% range. Instead, Greece shocked everyone when it announced that the avalanche of lemmings had made it possible for Greece to issue debt at a sub-5% yield, and a 4.75% cash coupon! Here is the final term sheet.
- Issuer: The Hellenic Republic
- Amount: €3 billion euros ($4.15 billion, upsized from €2.5 Billion)
- Maturity: April 17, 2019
- Tenor: 5 Years
- Yield: 4.95%
- Coupon: 4.75%
- Rating: Caa3/B-/B-
- Underwriters: BofAML, DB, GS, HSB, JPM, MS
- Governing Law: English
Additionally, as the Greek finmin said, “Demand for the bonds was very strong. Participation of foreign institutional investors is expected to approach 90 percent.” And participation of other people’s money will reach 100%.
Goldman’s post-mortem:
