Govt bonds fail to attract investors

Aditya Suharmoko , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 09/02/2008 10:18 AM | Business

The government Monday conducted its fifth retail bonds offering -- dubbed series OR1005 -- but failed to reach its sales target in part due to the bonds' low yield, which falls short of those of some bank security deposits.

The government could only sell Rp 2.71 trillion ($295.7 million) worth of bonds to individual investors, less than the targeted Rp 6.23 trillion, the Finance Ministry's director of government bonds Bimantara Widyajala said.

Bimantara said the government set the yield of the five-year notes at 11.45 percent, slightly lower than some bank deposit interest rates, which hover between 11.75 percent and 12.5 percent.

The yield of the government's previously offered FR0049 series bonds -- which were used as the benchmark for the ORI005 series -- was raised to 11.83 percent from 11.4 percent, making the retail bonds offered Monday even less attractive.

None of the 18 appointed sellers managed to achieve their sales target, with Bank Mandiri, Bank Central Asia and Danareksa Sekuritas the only sellers to achieve more than 80 percent of their targets.

Bank Danamon and Bank Mega sold less that 10 percent of their allotments.

However, the Finance Ministry's director general of debt management Rahmat Waluyanto said he was optimistic another series would be offered.

"It means ORI005 was mostly bought by retail investors. We want to change people's behavior from savings-oriented to investment-oriented," Rahmat said.

About 68.34 percent of the buyers purchased the ORI005 bonds in amounts ranging from Rp 5 million to Rp 100 million, an improvement from 54.59 percent during the ORI004-series offering.

Housewives continued their tradition of buying government retail bonds.

About 17.61 percent of the bonds were bought by some 2,465 housewives, who followed civil servants, police and military officers and private employees in biggest buyer groups.

The government aimed to secure Rp 94.5 trillion during the ORI005 offering to help plug the 2008 budget deficit.

In March, the government secured Rp 13.46 trillion through its fourth offering of retail bonds, or series ORI004, which is its all-time high, according to the directorate general of debt management.

The government last month issued its first sukuk (Islamic bonds) to the domestic market, but received less buyers than it had targeted. However, the government plans to go ahead with its planned October international sukuk issuance.

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