March 2007
Sovereign debt: Bank of England plans foreign-currency bonds
Distribution via syndication rather than auction
In addition to the prospect of earning fees, it is the rarity of syndicating pure UK government risk that makes this a highly prestigious mandate to win. The last syndicated UK government deal came through the auspices of the Debt Management Office – the £1.25 billion 50-year index-linked sold in September 2005 via Barclays, Morgan Stanley, RBS and UBS. Until that point the DMO had always preferred auctions, but after it suffered a mixed result on an ultra-long-dated fixed-rate deal sold earlier that year, it turned to syndication in an attempt to get a better result.
The last time a similar deal was done was way back in June 2003. The Bank of...
