Africa

African debut issuer Vivo Energy was the only borrower from CEEMEA to make an official mandate announcement this week after sustained weakness in global markets kept seven others on the sidelines, but EM bankers are not predicting sustained periods of stability will return.

African debut issuer Vivo Energy, the sole distributor of Shell products on the continent, is beginning to market a $400m bond this week.

More details of Telecom Egypt’s dollar financing have emerged that show the extent of Chinese state support for the company.

Proponents of the ISDA Common Domain Model say that if properly implemented, it could generate major cost savings for financial institutions. But what is it, what prompted its creation and how could it work with distributed ledger technology?

Ghana Cocoa Board (Cocobod) has announced the winning banking consortium for its annual trade finance facility, with Chinese banks making up two of the five top slots amid increased funding from the Asian country.

South Africa’s Aspen Pharmacare has signed syndicated loans totalling around €3.4bn-equivalent, in a deal that saw the sort of chunky oversubscription that lenders say will be commonplace throughout the year, because of lack of supply.

South Africa raised $2bn in a difficult market on Tuesday, after US Treasuries widened unexpectedly at just the moment that the sovereign began marketing its new deal. The resulting sell-off in both South Africa’s curve and the rand meant that the issuer was not able to tighten pricing as much as had been anticipated, and the deal was smaller.

Egypt’s Banque Misr is looking to raise dollar funding from the loan market, according to lenders, continuing the trend of financial institutions in the country raising international bank debt.

South Africa had to contend with an unexpected widening in US Treasuries when marketing its new deal on Tuesday. The resulting sell-off in both South Africa’s curve and the rand meant that the issuer was not able to tighten pricing as much as had been anticipated, and the deal was smaller overall.

South Africa has opened books on its first sovereign trade this year and is looking to capitalise on goodwill towards president Cyril Ramaphosa’s economic transformation efforts. It hopes to offset the recent spread widening that has followed weakness in the rand — and in broader emerging markets — as a result of the stronger dollar.

Arab Republic of Egypt’s bonds have rallied 50bp since last week with investors acting on a positive endorsement from Standard & Poor’s. Analysts say that any positive signals or third party endorsements will become increasingly important to the buyside as credit differentiation comes into play.

The Republic of Ghana raised $2bn with a dual tranche 10 and 30 year bond issue on Thursday, timing the deal well as emerging market assets rallied after several days of weakness.