Bond Market Indonesia: Euro Bonds Sales a Success, Samurai Bonds Next
The Indonesian government sold €3 billion worth of euro-denominated bonds (Surat Utang Negara, or SUN) on Tuesday (07/06) consisting of €1.5 billion of 7-year tenure bonds with a yield of 2.772 percent and €1.5 billion of 12-year tenure bonds with a yield of 3.906 percent. Combined, the issuance was oversubscribed 1.79 times with a total book order for the dual-trance bonds at €8.36 billion. Robert Pakpahan, Director General of Financing and Risk Management at Indonesia's Finance Ministry, said funds will be used to finance the 2016 budget deficit, which is expected to widen to 2.48 percent of GDP.
The central government and House of Representatives (DPR) are currently discussing the revisions to the 2016 State Budget as proposed by the government. One of the proposals involves the widening of the budget deficit to 2.48 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) - from 2.15 percent previously - as the Indonesian crude oil price needs has been lower than initially estimated while the nation's oil production has also been weaker than expected. To fund the widening deficit, the goverment intends to issue additional bonds this year.
Pakpahan added that robust investor appetite for this week's euro-denominated bonds sales, which were arranged by Barclays, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan and Societe Generale, reflects foreign confidence in the Indonesian economy. This appetite was also boosted by negative interest rates in the European Union. Meanwhile, the recent failure of Indonesia to obtain investment grade status from global credit rating agency Standard & Poor's did not curtail investor appetite. Indonesia is currently also in the process of issuing another series of yen-denominated (samurai) bonds for the Japanese market.
In 2015 Indonesia sold a total of €1.25 billion worth of euro-denominated bonds (oversubscribed 1.9 times). One year earlier, Southeast Asia's largest economy issued its first-ever euro bonds, raising €1 billion (6.7 times oversubscribed).