Sun. Dec 1st, 2024

Brussels, 21 July 2022

The European Commission has today issued €8 billion in a dual-tranche transaction under the NextGenerationEU recovery instrument. The deal was the 11th syndicated transaction under NextGenerationEU and the 6th in 2022. It consisted of a new 7-year bond of €5 billion due on 4 December 2029 and a €3 billion tap of an existing 20-year bond due on 4 July 2041.

The EU continued to attract strong investor demand despite a more challenging market backdrop. The combined order books reached over €61 billion demonstrating the ongoing appeal of NextGenerationEU bonds for investors.

Commissioner in charge of Budget and Administration, Johannes Hahn, said: “The Commission continues to successfully execute its funding programme despite the challenging market environment. This is good news for our Member States, who continue to receive support for their economic and social recovery as well as for the green and digital transition.”

With today’s transaction, the Commission has issued a total of €58 billion in long-term funding under NextGenerationEU in 2022. Having achieved its funding target for the first half of the year, the Commission is now progressing with the execution of its funding plan for the period between July and December 2022. More concretely, the Commission intends to issue €50 billion of EU-Bonds to finance the NextGenerationEU recovery programme in the second half of the year. As in the first half of the year, this long term funding will be complemented by short-term funding raised via the EU-Bills programme.

Since its launch in June 2021, the Commission has raised €129 billion in long-term EU-Bonds under the NextGenerationEU programme. Of this total, €28 billion has been raised in the form of green bonds. The Commission will continue using the funds raised to support Europe’s post-pandemic recovery, financing Member States under the Recovery and Resilience Facility as well as via other EU programmes. The Commission has so far disbursed over €100 billion under the Recovery and Resilience Facility and €15.5 billion under other EU programmes which benefit from NextGenerationEU financing.

Background

NextGenerationEU is a temporary recovery instrument of more than €800 billion in current prices to support Europe’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic and help build a greener, more digital and more resilient Europe.

To finance NextGenerationEU, the Commission – on behalf of the EU – is raising raise from the capital markets up to around €800 billion between now and end-2026.

In parallel to NextGenerationEU, the Commission runs several back-to-back funding programmes to finance the specific needs of the EU Member States and third countries. This includes the macro-financial assistance programme, under which the Commission has provided support of €1.2 billion to Ukraine since the beginning of the year, and has proposed a further €1.0 billion support, the first tranche of an up to €9.0 billion package.

6th NextGenerationEU bond syndication for 2022

7-year bond

The 7-year bond carries a coupon of 1.625% and came at a re-offer yield of (1.685% providing a spread of -11 bps to mid-swaps, which is equivalent to +80.8 bps over the 7-year Bund due in August 2029 and to 32.4 bps over the 7-year OAT due in November 2029.

The final order book was of over €33 billion, which meant that the bond has been more than six times oversubscribed.

19-year bond

The 19-year bond carries a coupon of 0.45% and came at a re-offer yield of 2.401% providing a spread of +24 bps to mid-swaps, which is equivalent to 101.1 bps over the 18-year Bund due in July 2040 and to 20.7 bps to the 18-year OAT due in May 2040.

The final order book was of €28 billion, which meant that the bond has been some nine times oversubscribed.

The joint lead managers of this transaction were Barclays, Credit Agricole, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Santander.

Source – EU Commission

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