As the Kingdom of Belgium kicked off its 2008 benchmark programme with a 10-year bond issue, the markets chose that week to turn violently choppy. The sovereign held its nerve, however, even though it felt obliged to reduce the size and widen the spread on offer.
The Belgian Debt Agency (BDA), which manages the nation’s public debt programme, plans to raise a little less than €30bn in medium- and long-term funding this year. Some €27bn of that will be in the form of the bilingually named ‘obligation linéaire/lineaire obligatie’ (OLO), its standard, liquid benchmark bond.
