Order book for $12bn Saudi bond 3 times oversubscribed

Saudi Arabia has raised $12 billion from a three-tranche bond to meet its funding needs.

The tranches of $5 billion, $3 billion and $4 billion have a duration of three, six and 10 years, respectively, the National Debt Management Center (NDMC) said in a post on social messaging platform X.

The total order book reached nearly $37 billion, an oversubscription of three times.

This week, finance minister Mohammed Al Jadaan approved the 2025 borrowing plan, which estimated funding of SAR139 billion ($37.02 billion) to cover the potential budget deficit.

The ministry anticipates a budget deficit of SAR101 billion for the year, with nearly SAR38 billion of debt repayment.

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced on Monday it has raised $7 billion to finance future investments. 

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Last week, Saudi Arabia secured a sharia-compliant revolving credit facility of $2.5 billion from three regional and international financial institutions to fund its budget gap.

Al Jadaan said the government aims to expand strategic spending through 2025 on development and giga-projects, in line with Vision 2030 programmes. 

Saad Thaqfan, a member of the Saudi Economic Association, told AGBI that Saudi Arabia is expected to overshoot spending in 2025 as it has done in previous years because it needs to fund growing Vision 2030 development requirements.