Ghana prices third Eurobond

Ghana has priced and would issue its third Eurobond of $1.0 billion at a coupon rate of 8.125. The bond was largely oversubscribed with orders reaching up to $ 3 billion.

Like the two previous issues, this year’s bond attracted investors from Europe, the United States, Middle East and Asia.

The bond is a soft amortising bond, amortising in years 2024, 2025 and 2026 with principal repayment in three instalments of $ 333 million in years 2024 and 2025, and $ 334 million in 2026.

The notes would be listed on the Irish and Ghana Stock Exchanges.

The bond was issued after a 10- day Roadshow that took the Ghana team led by Mr Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance and Dr Henry Kofi Wampah, Governor of the Bank of Ghana to Munich, London, New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Mr Terkper, at the end of the Pricing in New York, expressed satisfaction with the bond issue and the processes that led to its success saying: “investors saw fundamental long-term value in the Ghanaian economy.

“We have always emphasised that the mid-term prospects for Ghana are bright and with the coming on board of the IMF, we hope to come out of our short term challenges pretty soon,” he said.

Mr Terkper explained that $750 million would be used for capital expenditures, refinancing and counterpart funding requirements.

An additional $250 million would provide seed capital for the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund which is scheduled to be launched in January 2015.

“We want to assure our investors that we are committed to the IMF programme and we appreciate their vote of confidence in our economic management measures.”

Mr Terkper said the bond issuance was in line with Ghana’s new debt management strategy guided by the principle of financing capital expenditures with long- term debt and the issuing of project specific bonds for self-financing projects.