State Bank of Pakistan said on Saturday it planned to raise 15 billion rupees ($248.34 million) through an auction of long-term government bonds this month. The State Bank of Pakistan said in a statement it planned to sell fresh issues of three-, five- and 10-year Pakistan Investment Bonds (PIBs) on August 21.

It would also re-open October 31, 2006 issues of 15- and 20-year PIBs, in addition to reopening the December 22, 2006 issue of the 30-year bond, it said. Settlement will be on August 22.

The three-, five-, 10-, 15- and 20-year PIBs carry annual coupons of 9.1, 9.3, 9.6, 10 and 10.5 percent respectively, while the 30-year paper carries a coupon of 11 percent.

This will be the first PIB auction to be conducted by the government in the 2007/08 fiscal year, which began on July 1. The last PIB auction was held on June 5, when the central bank sold 15.14 billion rupees worth of long-term bonds.

The central bank then set a cut-off yield of 10.1244 percent on the benchmark 10-year paper, 9.5480 on the five-year and 9.3180 percent on the three-year PIBs. It also set a cut-off yield of 10.9857 percent for the 15-year PIB, 11.2016 percent for the 20-year and 11.5937 percent for the 30-year securities.

Copyright Reuters, 2007