Africa

First Bank of Nigeria is buying back $300m of its outstanding subordinated bonds.

Benin is one step closer to issuing a planned Eurobond after Standard & Poor’s gave it a B+ foreign currency sovereign credit rating on Friday. The West African issuer had sent out a request for proposals (RFP) for a bond back in April.

Creditors to retailer Steinhoff have agreed to give the scandal-hit company an extra three weeks to provide a debt restructuring plan, two days after the company said it would not be able to hammer out a deal in time for the initial June 30 deadline.

Scandal-hit retailer Steinhoff International Holdings has asked its creditors for a three week extension to hammer out the final terms of a multi-billion euro debt restructuring.

Nigeria’s Indorama Eleme Fertilizer & Chemicals has taken $1bn in debt financing, in the second use of the International Finance Corporation’s Managed Co-Lending Portfolio Programme in a week.

Absa Bank and Rand Merchant Bank are selling a 2.9% stake in Shoprite, the South African food retailer, as part of a derivative transaction with Christo Wiese, chairman of Shoprite and former chairman of Steinhoff International.

The Islamic Development Bank has been meeting investors and banks in Europe to explore the possibility of launching its first public sukuk issue in euros. A labelled green sukuk might follow.

Shares in Quilter, the UK asset management arm of Old Mutual, performed well in the aftermarket on Monday after its £239m London IPO.

Quilter, Old Mutual’s UK asset management subsidiary, has priced its IPO. The last guidance was that orders below 145p risked missing the deal. At that level, the deal would come two thirds of the way up its original range.

Two issuers from the CEEMEA region — Bulgarian Energy Holding and Ecobank Transnational Inc — have mandated banks for new bonds and are embarking on roadshows, breaking the wait-and-see mode that the market had slipped into over the last week.

Ecobank Transnational Incorporated, a pan-African banking group, is the only CEEMEA issuer to have publicly progressed with bond plans this week, setting the roadshow for its debut dollar bond. A syndicate official on the deal said that lead managers are confident of demand, but a rival questioned whether a single-B rated sub-Saharan issuer could reopen the market.

Unrealistic pricing expectations are keeping two EM corporate issuers by the wayside after volatile markets forced Atrium to cancel a tender offer combined with a new issue last week.