NAIROBI (Xinhua) --
Central Bank of Kenya (CBK)’s move to withdraw the
sale of 182-day Treasury bill in the last three auctions has paid
off, with 91-day and 364-day bills currently registering
oversubscription.The six-month paper before its withdrawal
had been investors’ favourite because of the high returns it
offered, clouding the other two securities.
Its subscription had for weeks peaked at 400 percent as the other
two recorded up to 20 percent uptake.
The move to withdraw the 182-day bill, according to analysts, was
aimed at helping in management of maturities, by spreading their
concentration risk evenly across the three papers.
With the 182-day Treasury bill out of auction, the 91-day and
364-day papers have been performing well, with the former
registering oversubscription this week for the first time in months.
The Central Bank as in the past week offered 91 and 364 days
Treasury bills for a total of 194 million U.S. dollars, 97 million
dollars each.
"The total number of bids received amounted to 104 million
dollars representing 112 percent subscription and 124 million
dollars representing 133 percent subscription for 91 and 364 days,
respectively," said the bank in auction results Friday.
Bids accepted amounted to 69 million dollars for 91 days and 90
million dollars for 364 days Treasury bills.
The weighted average rate of accepted bids, which will be applied
for non-competitive bids, was 8.76 percent for the 91-day and 10.92
percent for 364-day Treasury bills.
Last week, subscription rates for the 91 and 364 days papers came
in at 97 percent and 166 percent respectively.
