Italy expected to issue new retail bonds before summer

Italy’s Treasury is preparing to launch new bonds dedicated to small savers in an effort to increase retail investors’ holdings of the country’s huge debt.

Rome is trying to find new bond buyers for its over 2.760 trillion Euro ($2.92 trillion) debt – proportionally the second highest in the Eurozone – as the European Central Bank started offloading sovereign debt from its portfolio earlier this month.

The new instrument will be a BTP bond, without any link to inflation, and it will foresee a loyalty premium. It will probably be unveiled before the summer depending on market conditions.

The Treasury already offers two bonds conceived for retail investors – BTP Italia, which is linked to inflation, and BTP Futura, linked to gross domestic product growth.

Last month Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said she wanted reduce the country’s dependence on foreign creditors by increasing the number of Italians that hold the public debt.

Three similar BTP Italia bonds mature in April, May, and November for a total of nearly 25 billion euros, an aspect the Treasury will probably take into account while considering the debut date of the new instrument.