TCorp, the financing arm of the New South Wales Government, has announced it intends to issue a new line of March 2028 bonds in order to raise at least $500 million. TCorp said the new bonds would be sold via a syndication process later this week and were intended to lengthen TCorp’s debt maturity profile. It intends the new bonds to be given “benchmark” status, which means the issue size will be large and its liquidity supported in the secondary market.
TCorp has been quiet for the last 12 months but given the state of the NSW budget, this is perhaps not a surprise. NSW is one of only two Australian states running a budget surplus and therefore it does not require the sale of bonds to finance a budget shortfall. Its last transaction in the domestic bond market was in April 2015 when it bought back $1.9 billion of April 2016 FRNs and sold an equivalent face value of October 2020s, leaving the remaining $600 million to be redeemed later this week.