Greece Returns To Bond Markets After Four-Year Exile
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The long-troubled Greek economy successfully returned to international bond markets on Thursday, raising 3 billion euros ($4.2 billion) from bond issues, with nearly 90 percent of the sum coming from foreign investors.
“Greece today took one more decisive step toward exiting the crisis,” said Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in a televised address afterward. “International markets are now expressing in the most undoubted way possible their confidence in the Greek economy.”
The long-troubled Greek economy successfully returned to international bond markets on Thursday, raising 3 billion euros ($4.2 billion) from bond issues, with nearly 90 percent of the sum coming from foreign investors.
“Greece today took one more decisive step toward exiting the crisis,” said Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in a televised address afterward. “International markets are now expressing in the most undoubted way possible their confidence in the Greek economy.”
According to the finance ministry, Greece sold five-year bonds at 4.75 percent interest. Deputy Greek Prime Minister Evangelos Venizelos told reporters that the sale had been ‘at least eight times oversubscribed’.
IMF chief Christine Lagarde later said that the bond issue showed the Greek economy was headed in the “right direction.”
“I see the issuance that took place today, which was massively oversubscribed, as an indication that Greece is heading in the right direction,” Lagarde told reporters at the World Bank/International Monetary Fund annual spring meetings.
[quote]”(However) There is still a lot to be done,” she added. ”The programme is not over, but this is a clear indication that the return to markets, which is clearly the objective of any IMF program, is on the horizon.”[/quote]Prime Minister Samaras said he hoped the success of the bond issuance had ‘opened the way for cheaper borrowing’ for the recession-hit country.
“If all goes well from now on, next time the country will be able to borrow higher sums at lower interest,” he said.
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Greece was frozen out of debt markets in 2010 after it revealed public accounts had been falsified and asked the IMF and European Union for a bailout.
Analysts the New York Times spoke to suggested that many people were investing in Greece, despite it not being completely out of the woods, because they believed that the eurozone would bail the country out rather than see it default. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has pledged to do “whatever it takes” to keep the crisis from reigniting.
