The plan is to combine the move with Merkel's visit to Athens
The Wall Street Journal, By Ben Edwards,Alkman Granitsas and Emese Bartha
After four years of being "shut out"
“Greece plans to issue long-term bonds on Wednesday, sources say”.
Greece is planning its first long-term debt sale since its international bailout on Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The country is likely to sell around €2 billion ($2.75 billion) in five-year bonds, assuming market conditions remain benign, one of the people said.
Deutsche Bank AG and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. have been hired to run the sale, according to people familiar with the matter.
The deal would mark a significant turnaround for Greece, which had been frozen out of global bond markets after huge debts left the country reliant on financial aid to stave off bankruptcy, and comes only two years after an unprecedented €200 billion sovereign-debt restructuring.
Demand for bonds with higher yields is also supporting Greece's return to the long-term debt market, as record-low interest rates prompt investors to snap up bonds they had previously shunned. Greece's 10-year bonds are yielding about 6.1% on Tuesday, marking a large rally since prices dropped far enough to pump yields above 30% in 2012. Still, at around 6%, Greek yields still tower over those of Germany, where they stand at 1.56%.
"All in all, Greek government bondholders suffered a principal loss of roughly 69% over the last two years. But now it's time to move forward, and the market is positive again on Greek government bonds," said Alessandro Giansanti, senior rates strategist at ING Bank.
Earlier Tuesday, the Greek Public Debt Management Agency sold €1.3 billion of 26-week T-bills at a uniform yield of 3.01%—more than half a percentage point lower than it paid at last month's sale.
The yields on auction were seen as encouraging, with senior Greek Finance Ministry officials pointing to the results as a sign that Greece was ready to return to the markets with a longer-dated maturity.
"Today's six-month T-bill auction confirms the improved economic and investment climate in our country," Deputy Finance Minister Christos Staikouras said in a statement. "The yield, which has now fallen to significantly lower levels compared with the comparable pre-[bailout] memorandum month of April 2010, as well as the level and composition of the offers, show that the Greek economy has already entered on to a path of returning to the international capital markets."
