Sovereign debt: Bank of England plans foreign-currency bonds

The Bank of England is planning to issue non-sterling medium-term debt to finance its foreign exchange reserves on an annual basis. The bank has mandated Barclays Capital, Citi, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan for the syndication. The first deal is likely to take place in the week of March 12: the Bank of England said, it will be a three-year US dollar transaction.

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.

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