Bank of England completes 20 billion pound corporate bond sale programme

LONDON (Reuters) - The Bank of England said on Tuesday it was ending its programme of corporate bond sales, after offloading almost all of the 20 billion pounds ($24.8 billion) it bought as part of its quantitative easing (QE) programme.

The BoE first bought corporate bonds in 2016, to support the economy after Britain voted to leave the European Union, and doubled its holdings in 2020 as part of its efforts to limit the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses.

Sales began in September 2022 and last month the BoE said they were likely to be completed within a few weeks.

After a final auction on Tuesday, the BoE said it would hold 833 million pounds of corporate bonds which were close to maturing, unless investors approach it directly to buy them.

"As previously announced, a small number of very short maturity bonds will continue to be held in the portfolio maturing fully by 5 April 2024," the BoE said.

Before the sale programme started last year, the BoE had been under pressure from environmental campaigners to divest its holdings of bonds from companies such as energy giant BP and mining company Rio Tinto.

Corporate bonds were only ever a small fraction of the BoE's total QE programme, which reached 895 billion pounds at its peak in December 2021 and overwhelmingly consisted of government bonds.

The BoE is now reducing its holdings of government bonds at a pace of 80 billion pounds a year, split roughly equally between outright sales and not reinvesting the proceeds of bonds which mature.

($1 = 0.8065 pounds)

(Reporting by William James and David Milliken; editing by Sarah Young)