Cases & Deals

Financial institutions complete benchmark €7 billion 2.70% OLO by Kingdom of Belgium

Client(s) Financial institutions

Jones Day assisted the financial institutions in connection with the issuance of a five-year benchmark €7 billion 2.70% OLO (the “OLO 102”) by the Kingdom of Belgium. The OLO 102 was priced at a spread of 1bp below the Mid-Swap Rate giving a reoffer yield of 2.711% and a re-offer price of 99.953%. The term "OLO" refers to the Kingdom's “obligations linéaires”/“lineaire obligaties”. The bonds will be listed on Euronext Brussels. Belgium's rating is Aa3 (Moody's) stable / AA (S&P) stable / AA- (Fitch) negative.

The books opened on April 9, 2024 shortly after 9:00 am. There was a strong participation from the outset, with the order book growing to over €46 billion at 11:30 am. The excellent quality of the book encouraged the Belgian Debt Agency to set the deal size at €7 billion. Geographic distribution was granular with just under 200 accounts involved in the transaction, with investors from Asia, UK, and France taking together 63% of the allocations.

The Belgian Debt Agency plans to issue a total of €41 billion in OLOs this year. With this issue, a total of €24.785 billion has already been issued, or 60.45% of this amount.