Sri Lanka sold a further 5,000 million rupees of Treasury bonds on tap at rates set at this week’s auction, bringing total bond sales for the week to 85.69 billion rupees against an offer of 100 billion, EconomyNext reported at 9.15 a.m. on Thursday, citing Public Debt Management Office data.
The tap covered two maturities:
- 15 September 2029 (LKB00629I154) at a weighted average yield of 11.00 percent
- 1 December 2031 (LKB01031L016) at a weighted average yield of 11.67 percent
Settlement date is 15 October.
The tap was more than twice covered, and the debt office still took less than half
Total market subscription at the tap was 10,715 million rupees, against the 5,000 million actually sold. The office accepted roughly 47 percent of what was bid.
That is a choice, not a constraint. With the week’s issuance 14.31 billion rupees short of the 100 billion offered, the debt office had room to close most of the gap from tap bids alone and did not — leaving the week’s shortfall intact rather than accepting more paper at the auction’s established rates. Neither filing comments on this.
The week in full
Tuesday’s auction sold 80.69 billion rupees of the 100 billion offered, EconomyNext reported at 5.34 p.m. on 13 October, with the breakdown:
| Maturity | Offered | Sold | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Sep 2029 (LKB00629I154) | Rs 20bn | Rs 20bn (full) | 11.00% |
| 1 Dec 2031 (LKB01031L016) | Rs 30bn | Rs 30bn (full) | 11.67% |
| 15 Aug 2036 (LKB01136H151) | Rs 50bn | Rs 30.69bn | 12.33% |
The entire shortfall sat in the 2036 bond, which filled only 61 percent of its offer. The two shorter maturities cleared in full — and those two were the ones made available on tap, which is what Thursday’s sale drew on. The market took everything out to 2031 at 11.00–11.67 percent and left nearly 20 billion rupees of 15-year paper on the table at 12.33 percent.
Adding Tuesday’s 80.69 billion to Thursday’s 5.00 billion gives the 85.69 billion reported for the week.
The two filings disagree on which bonds Tuesday sold
Thursday’s report states that “on Tuesday, 80.69 billion rupees in 2030, 2034 and 2037 bonds were sold.” That is wrong, and EconomyNext’s own Tuesday filing is the evidence: its headline, its per-maturity breakdown and its ISINs all give 2029, 2031 and 2036.
Three things settle it. The amounts match exactly (80.69 billion). The tap maturities named in Thursday’s own report — LKB00629I154 and LKB01031L016 — are the identical instruments listed in Tuesday’s breakdown. And Tuesday’s filing closes by stating that “the 2029 and 2031 bonds are available on tap,” which is precisely what was tapped.
The likely explanation is carried-over copy: 2030, 2034 and 2037 was the maturity set of an earlier auction, the Rs150 billion three-way sale this desk reported in July. The figure is right; the maturities attached to it are from a different sale. Readers comparing the two reports should use Tuesday’s.
Context
The Public Debt Management Office is the Treasury body set up to consolidate sovereign borrowing functions. The Committee on Public Finance has previously raised staffing and expertise gaps there. Sri Lanka’s medium-term debt strategy for 2026–2030 leans on domestic issuance of this kind.
The week’s borrowing ran alongside a weak equity market: the ASPI closed below 20,000 on Wednesday for the first time since August 2025. EconomyNext’s separate Thursday afternoon market report — not among the sources cited above — put the index up 175.09 points, or 0.88 percent, at 19,971.15. That reconciles exactly against the 19,796.06 Wednesday close recorded in this archive, but it leaves the index still below the 20,000 line.
Not reported
Neither filing gives the bid-to-cover ratio at Tuesday’s auction, the number of bids, how yields compared with the previous auction, or why the 2036 bond fell short. Neither says whether the remaining 14.31 billion rupees will be re-offered. No other verified newsroom had filed on either sale at the time of writing — Daily FT’s financial-services, business and front-page listings, NewsFirst, Daily Mirror, Island, Colombo Gazette and Lanka Business Online all returned nothing, and Ada Derana remained blocked.
