BTp Value, exceeded 10 billion in two days

Demand for BTp Valore slightly exceeded EUR 4 billion on the second day of the placement. In detail, orders reached an amount of 4.191 billion against just over 131 thousand contracts signed. In the first two days of the offer, the total amount issued thus amounted to EUR 10.19 billion. The BTp Valore offered last October on the second day of issuance had totalled orders for EUR 4.3 billion and for EUR 9.7 billion in the first two days of placement. The issue is reserved for small savers and the bond provides for nominal coupons paid every three months and a maturity of six years with an extra final premium equal to 0.8 per cent of the invested capital. The issue will close next Friday, unless it closes early.

For the first time, the six-year BTp will be divided into three two-year periods: in the first, the yield will be at 2.5 per cent, in the second it will rise to 2.8 per cent and reach 3.5 per cent in the final two years, before the maturity date of 10 March 2032.

For those who, after having purchased the BTp in the week of issuance managed with Intesa Sanpaolo, UniCredit and Bpm as dealers and Mps and Iccrea as co-dealers, will keep it until maturity, the final bill will be enriched by the loyalty bonus of 0.8 per cent: over the six-year horizon, average annual coupons reach 2.95 per cent and rise to 3.08 per cent with the loyalty bonus.

The second day's success comes, moreover, in a session characterised by strong tensions in both the stock and bond markets: yields on the euro curve where broad and generalised sales triggered by the war in the Middle East are accompanied by a flight-to-quality that rewards assets perceived as more reliable on the bond market. Fears of soaring energy prices and, later, inflation fuelled bond sales and favoured the consequent upward shift in the yield curve: the German Bund saw its yield rise from 2.70% yesterday to 2.78%, while yields on the 10-year maturity of French OOTs and Spanish Bonos soared by 10 basis points. The negative market phase was accompanied by a worsening of the perception of BTp bonds as assets with higher risk coefficients. On the ten-year maturity, in fact, the jump in the yield for Italy's bond is larger than that of its Eurozone peers and is currently worth 14 basis points (at 3.49%). Of the same tenor is the dynamic observed on shorter maturities. This translates into a widening of the BTP/Bund spread, which is now approaching the 70 basis point threshold again from 66 points at yesterday's close and from 60 points in the days before the conflict.