Foreign investors put in bids worth Rs 5000 crore for government bonds

NEW DELHI: In a strong show of interest by foreign investors, the government bond auction today attracted bids worth Rs 4,963 crore, higher than the amount of such securities on offer at Rs 3,117 crore.

The auction was held for overseas investors at 'nse-ebid' platform for government debt securities, as per information provided by the NSE.

At the end of two-hour auction this evening, total bids received amounted to Rs 4,963 crore ($816 million), from 39 successful bidders.

They have been allocated investment limits for government debt securities worth Rs 3,117 crore.

The total overseas investments in government debt securities through auction route had touched Rs 1,21,315 crore as on September 9, which is 97.5 per cent of total permitted limit of Rs 1,24,432 crore.

Consequently, the exchange had decided to conduct an auction for the allocation of unutilised debt limits. A mock bidding session was conducted yesterday to check the system's performance.

In last month's auction conducted by the BSE, government bonds had attracted bids worth Rs 3,640 crore, against such securities valued Rs 3,208 crore on offer.

In July, market regulator Sebi had tweaked the investment limits for foreign investors in government securities by increasing the threshold for such investors from $20 billion to $25 billion.

At the same time, the sub-limit for longer time overseas investors such as sovereign funds has been reduced by $5 billion as there was less demand in this category. The overall cap remains unchanged at $30 billion.