By Dipo Olowookere
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Wednesday conducted an unscheduled auctioning of some treasury bills at the open market. This was the first in nearly a month. The last was conducted in mid-July.
During yesterday’s exercise, the apex bank floated OMO bills worth N100 billion, but offers valued at N445.82 billion were received from traders, with N114.6 billion allotted.
According to Zedcrest Research, banks were not restricted from buying for their own accounts as in the last OMO auction.
Business Post reports that the central bank auctioned the debt instruments in three maturities; 85-day, 183-day and 344-day.
A further analysis showed that N10 billion worth of the 85-day bill, N20 billion worth of the 183-day instrument and N70 billion worth of the 344-day bill.
Details of the outcome of the exercise showed that the three tenors were oversubscribed by investors, with N20.95 billion received for the 3-month bill, N59.47 billion received for the 6-month bill and N365.40 billion received for the one-year bill.
However, the CBN declared a no sale for the 183-day instrument, with N17.74 billion allotted for the 3-month instrument at 11.30 percent and N96.85 billion allotted for the one-year bill at 12.00 percent.
Adedapo Adesanya