By Andrei Skvarsky.
Africa Finance Corporation (AFC), a multinational development institution, has issued a $500m Eurobond in a project coordinated by a bank consortium consisting of Bank of America, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs among others.
The benchmark five-year bond with a coupon of 5.55 per cent, listed on the London Stock Exchange and Euronext Dublin, has generated significant interest across the world and has been more than two and a half times oversubscribed, resulting in an order book exceeding $1.2bn, AFC said in a statement.
The United Arab Emirates’ First Abu Dhabi Bank, South Africa’s RMB and Japan’s SMBC Nikko were other members of the consortium overseeing a project that marks AFC’s return to the world debt market after about three years of absence.
AFC said 57 per cent of the subscribers were based in Europe, 23 per cent in North America, 15 per cent in the Middle East and 5 per cent in Asia. The Eurobond is part of AFC’s current $5bn global medium-term note programme, which matures in 2025.