Africa’s Eurobond issuance hits $15 billion in 2014

THE total volume of Eurobonds Africa issued in 2014 is said to have exceeded that of 2013, currently standing at over $15 billion.

This was disclosed, yesterday, in Washington DC, USA, by Head of Debt Primary Markets at Standard Bank, Megan McDonald, on sidelines of World Bank spring.

McDonald said: “In general, I think you can say that the capital that has been raised by Eurobond issuances has been well used in Africa.

“One of the benefits of any issuer accessing the Eurobond market is that it increases the scrutiny and focus from a global investor audience in terms of government procedures, reporting and information disclosure, which imposes a discipline on the issuer to ensure that the funds are used appropriately.”

Meanwhile, finance ministers from Cote d’Ivoire, Gabon and Nigeria are taking part in a capital markets summit on the sidelines of the IMF/World Bank Spring meetings.

They join the Ugandan Central Bank Governor, Prof. Emmanuel Tumusiime-Mutebile, as well as investment bankers and lawyers to discuss the latest developments in Africa’s debt and capital markets.

Emerging market sovereign debt has attracted global interest over the past five years, especially as yields in the West have been low, and right now investors are paying governments to lend them money.

A statement on the forum, informed that discussions at the meeting will be centred around whether this debt accumulation is manageable and what policy makers can do to accelerate reform in order to enable deeper capital markets and more cross border capital flows.

The meeting is organised by African Banker magazine, part of the IC Publications group, which is one of Africa’s leading media and communications groups. It the first time that the Summit is taking place in Washington DC. Historically it took place in June, following the African Development Bank meetings.

Speaking ahead of the summit, group publisher at IC Publications and Managing Director of IC Events, Omar Ben Yedder, said that the focus of ADCM5 would be on the emergence of world-class financial hubs in Africa.

African capital markets, he said, have a clear and critical role in increasingly driving investment, growth and economic diversification.

“There needs to be an avenue for small and medium sized businesses to raise capital and the capital markets should be there for them”, he added.

Meanwhile, the World Bank in a latest issue of the World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief disclosed that $21 billion (N4.2 trillion) was sent by Nigerian abroad to families and friends at home in 2014.

According to the report, officially recorded remittances to the developing world are expected to reach $440 billion in 2015, an increase of 0.9 percent over the previous year. Global remittances, including those to high income countries, are projected to grow by 0.4 percent to $586 billion.

“The top five migrant destination countries continue to be the United States, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) while the top five remittance recipient countries, in terms of value of remittances, continue to be India, China, Philippines, Mexico and