Ireland made a storming return to the international bond market on Tuesday as the bumper demand for the country’s first debt sale since exiting its bailout helped drive down yields across the eurozone’s periphery.
The country’s NTMA debt agency sold off €3.75bn of bonds but investors bid more than €14bn (£11.6bn) for the new 10-year bond – nearly four times the amount being sold.
The bond – the first Dublin has sold since last March – had a yield of just over 3.5%, and marked a substantial step towards the target of raising up to €10bn this year.
“This sale shows Ireland has fully exited the EU/IMF [bailout],” Michael Noonan, the finance minister, said in a statement.
“The yield of 3.54% illustrates the strength of Ireland’s international reputation and brings us far closer to the borrowing rates of the strongest European economies.”
Ireland’s cost of borrowing over 10 years has tumbled from a peak of about 15%, which was reached in 2011 as the eurozone’s debt crisis intensified.
