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Italian Bond Market is represented by state, municipal and Italian corporate bonds. According to Cbonds as of 10.03.2019, there are more than 3 thousand Italian bonds in circulation with the total volume equivalent to 2,960 billion US dollars. Local bond market of the country is quite developed and occupies 76% of the total debt market (in terms of the number of issues) whereas Eurobonds accounts for 24%.
The Treasury department that is subordinate to the Ministry of economy and Finance is occupied with issue and management of Italian national debt. Within the structure of the treasury, Directorate II issues government bonds, conducts management of current debt and interacts with the market participants. Government debt in Italy consists of government bonds of such types: • BOT (Treasury Bills) – short-term Italian bonds with the maturity period of 3, 6, 12 months, issued at a discount par value. • CTZ (Zero Coupon Treasury bonds) – treasury bonds with a zero coupon and the maturity of 24 months, issued at a discount par value. • CCT/CCTeu (Treasury Certificates) – treasury bonds with floating interest rate and the maturity of 5-7 years. The coupon rate is tied to the 6-month BOT auction rate or the 6-month EURIBOR rate. • BTP (Treasury Bonds / BTP Italian bonds) – classic coupon bonds, Italian treasury bonds with a maturity of 3, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, 30 and 50 years. The main benchmark of the market is Italy 10 year bond. • BTP€I (Treasury Bonds Indexed to European Inflation) – long-term treasury bonds tied to the Eurostat Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP). • BTP Italia (Treasury Bonds Indexed to Italian Inflation) – Italian treasury bonds tied to inflation in Italy and created specifically for retail investors. Both coupon payment and nominal payment are tied to "The FOI national index", "Prezzi al consumo per le famiglie di operai e impiegati". Italian government bonds are usually distributed as follows via a public auction, via underwriting syndicate and via electronic trading platforms. The Treasury usually distributes state bonds via Italy bond auctions with only occasional primary distributions via syndications. With the introduction of the BTP Italia type, the Treasury also began to conduct distributions via Italian exchange platform. Concerning the distribution of Italian sovereign debt auctions are held in two types "a competitive yield auction" and "a marginal price auction". BOT are distributed via a competitive yield auction and long-term bonds are distributed via a marginal price auction. Annually Treasury publishes a calendar of bonds distribution for the next year. The main indicators of the Italy debt market as of 10.03.2019: • Italy debt to GDP ratio: 132.1%; • Italy bond spread (BTP) to the German Treasury bonds: 241.98 bps; • Italy 10 year bond yield: 2.5%. Current Italy yield curve and Italian bond yields are available at "Market maps" section of the Cbonds site. |
