The European Commission announced it raised €15 billion to help finance Europe’s recovery from the coronavirus crisis in its second NextGenerationEU bond programme transaction.

The latest deal was a dual-tranche transaction consisting of a €9 billion 5-year bond due on July 6, 2026, and a €6 billion 30-year bond due on July 6, 2051.

“Both tranches attracted a very strong interest by investors across Europe and the world,” said the Commission.

“The transaction was more than 11 times oversubscribed and with bids exceeding €170 billion.

“As a result, the Commission has obtained very favourable pricing conditions, building on the successful first NextGenerationEU issuance earlier this month a …”

To finance NextGenerationEU, the European Commission – on behalf of the EU – will raise up to around €800 billion from the capital markets between now and the end of 2026.

On the terms of the bonds, the Commission said: “The 5-year bond carries a coupon of 0% and came at a re-offer yield of -0.335% providing a spread of -11 bps to mid-swaps, which is equivalent to +22.0 bps over the five-year Bund due in April 2026.

“The final order book was in excess of €88 billion, which meant that the bond has been nearly 10 times oversubscribed.

“The 30-year bond carries a coupon of 0.7% and came at a re-offer yield of 0.732% providing a spread of +22 bps to mid-swaps, which is equivalent to 39.9 bps over the 30-year Bund due in August 2050.

“The final order book was in excess of €83 billion, which meant that the bond has been nearly 14 times oversubscribed.

“On a standalone basis, the orderbook of the 30-year tranche was the largest ever in that maturity for a supranational issuer in the euro market.

“The joint lead managers of this transaction were Credit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, UniCredit and Goldman Sachs. BBVA and Erste bank acted as co-lead managers.”

This was the second transaction under the NextGenerationEU bond programme, following the €20 billion 10-year bond that the Commission sold on June 15 on behalf of the EU.

The first bond was the largest-ever institutional bond issuance in Europe, the largest-ever institutional single tranche transaction and the largest amount the EU has raised in a single transaction.

The Commission has so far raised €35 billion under NextGenerationEU, and it expects to raise €80 billion in bonds by the end of 2021.