Saudi Arabia said on Thursday that it had issued US$12.5 billion in three tranches of notes, the second issue under its Global Medium-Term Note program, as the desert Kingdom desperately tries to offset the budget deficit incurred by the lower-for-longer oil prices. The Saudi notes were one tranche of US$3 billion maturing in 2023, a second tranche worth US$5 billion due in 2028, and a third tranche of US$4.5 billion maturing in 2047. The issue—the largest government bond sale from an emerging market country this year—drew interest from international and local investors, with the order book peaking at US$40 billion. The debt sale was Saudi Arabia’s third tapping of international bond markets, after the huge US$17.5 billion bond issue in October last year, which became the largest-ever emerging market bond sale and attracted orders totaling nearly four times that amount. In April, the Saudis raised US$9 billion in the […]