Africa

Nedbank has closed a $500m term loan, while Investec has launched its own syndicated loan, indicating that despite concerns about South Africa’s ratings outlook, its borrowers maintain access to international syndicated loans.

The Arab Republic of Egypt had clocked up more than $9bn of demand for its triple tranche bond trade by lunch time on Wednesday.

Ghanaian cocoa agency, Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod), will raise a $600m loan from supranational and international lenders. The deal is Cocobod's third syndicated loan this year.

Egypt is in market promoting a new deal: three tranches of benchmark dollar funding. Its 40 year tranche will be Egypt’s longest ever deal.

Citigroup is forming a new EMEA sustainable banking team and has hired a senior sustainable banking expert who had spent two years away from the firm, working for a supranational.

Moody’s has downgraded South Africa’s outlook from stable to negative, in what some think is the precursor to the country being classified as a junk borrower. Lenders — in characteristic fashion — have shrugged off the implications for the country’s borrowers, claiming they enjoy a strong national banking system.

South African Bank Investec has agreed a $300m term loan facility with a consortium of international lenders. The deal, Investec's second syndicated facility this year, confirms that lenders remain committed to the South African market despite uncertainty around the country's economy and investment-grade ratings.

Emerging market issuers continued to enjoy solid market conditions this week with new mandates joining the pipeline and Abu Dhabi’s Mamoura executing a $3.5bn triple tranche trade.

South African gold producer Sibanye-Stillwater has refinanced an existing local currency revolving credit facility, demonstrating lender confidence in the country's borrowers despite the threat of an impending rating downgrade.

Europe’s lacklustre market for IPOs is showing little signs of improvement as the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), the African trade finance group, pulled its $250m IPO on the London Stock Exchange, blaming “unfavourable market conditions”.

Russia's VTB Bank has signed an agreement with African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) to boost trade finance cooperation between the two in Africa. The announcement comes on the heels of the inaugural Russia-Africa summit held this week in Sochi, during which a number of trade deals were said to have been signed.

South Africa is poised to lose its final investment grade rating when Moody's conducts a review of its score a week from Friday. That has the potential to throw South African borrowers' funding plans into chaos following a year of of healthy, tightly priced issuance. Mariam Meskin and Ross Lancaster report.