Nigeria plans first Eurobond issue by June after two-year hiatus
Nigeria has hired investment banks including Citibank NA, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to advise it on its first eurobond issue since 2022, according to people familiar with the deal.
The size of the eurobond offer which is expected before June, is yet to be determined, the people who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment publicly on the matter, said. Africa’s largest oil producer could raise as much as $1 billion in external borrowing this year to meet its spending needs, they said.
President Bola Tinubu approved a 28.8 trillion naira ($18 billion) spending plan for 2024 and is targeting a budget deficit of 9.8 trillion naira, or 3.8% of gross domestic product, which will be financed by borrowings from local and international investors and multilateral lenders.
Emerging-market bond sales are springing back to life as governments seek to raise money after years of being priced out of international debt markets because of rising global interest rates. Benin, Ivory Coast and Kenya have successfully issued eurobonds this year.
Since coming into office in May, Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu has been seeking to attract foreign investors back into the economy with a raft of reforms. These include devaluing the naira twice as the country moves toward a more flexible exchange rate, reducing the gap between the central bank’s policy rate and yields on the short-dated paper it sells at auctions and removing costly fuel subsidies.
The government has also engaged Standard Chartered Bank and Lagos-based Chapel Hill Denham as advisers, according to the people. The nation’s debt management office didn’t respond to calls and requests for comments.
