The Federal Home Loan Bank System, the largest collective source of US home mortgage funding, on Friday sold $1.5 billion 30-year global bonds. The 5.50 percent bonds, due on July 15, 2036, were priced at 98.656 to yield 5.593 percent, or 47 basis points over US Treasuries.
The sale was initially announced on Wednesday as a $2 billion offering, and is the first 30-year syndicated global deal from FHLB. "Due to market conditions we believed it was prudent to launch this issue at $1.5 billion. It is important to the Federal Home Loan Banks to maintain debt programs that perform well after pricing," Mike Ciota, FHLB spokesman, said in a release.
The issue was "well sold", and preliminary distribution shows that 86 percent of the bonds were purchased domestically and 15 percent internationally, according to the release.