News Release
Gilt-Edged Auctions: October to December 1997

30 September 1997

In the third quarter of the 1997-98 financial year, there will be one single auction and one dual auction of gilt-edged stock as set out below:

Wednesday, 29 October 1997: 7¼% Treasury Stock 2007.

*Wednesday, 26 November 1997: a new short conventional stock in the range 2003-2004.

The amounts to be auctioned and the terms of the auctions will be announced at 3.30 pm on Tuesday, 21 October 1997 for the October auction; and at 3.30 pm on Tuesday, 18 November 1997 for the November auction (but see * below).

Details of progress with gilt sales were announced on 11 September. Copies of that announcement are available on request from the Bank of England, as are copies of the record of meetings with gilt-edged market makers and end investors.

*The date of the Novemebr auction will be reviewed in the light of the timing of the Green Budget.

Notes to Editors

The 1997-98 Remit to the Bank of England issued by H M Government on 12 March 1997 set out the gilt issuance programme for the financial year 1997-98. The Remit provided for conventional gilt auctions to be held on broadly a monthly basis throughout the financial year but, in the light of the reduction in the forecast CGBR for 1997-98 announced in the Budget and, consequently, in the gilt sales requirement as announced by the Bank on 2 July 1997, the August 1997 and February 1998 auctions have been cancelled. In addition, as was also announced by the Bank on 2 July, the two dual auctions, which were due to be held in the third and fourth quarters of the 1997-98 financial year, were changed to single auctions. The revised auction calendar, therefore, provides for nine auction sales in the 1997-98 financial year of which seven are single stock auctions and two are dual stock auctions.

The Remit also states that the quarterly announcement of auctions will indicate either the stock to be auctioned or, where further feedback on the choice of stocks would be valuable, the intended maturity range of the stock to be auctioned.