Africa Bonds

Reports on Tuesday that Tanzania has postponed its debut Eurobond until the next fiscal year because of a delay in getting a risk assessment from Citi have been denied by bankers in London both at Citi and away from the bank.

Retail investors drove a long four year bond from African Bank to success on Monday, with the South African financial appealing to a market that has suffered scarce supply from high yielding credits in 2014.

Total EM volumes are only marginally down on last year to date, at $71.3bn, despite secondary trading levels having been rocked by an emerging markets sell off over the last fortnight. The total volume of new EM paper sold is only $36bn lower than at this point in 2013, according to Dealogic data.

South African lender African Bank opened books on a long four year Swiss franc deal on Monday morning, becoming the first African issuer to borrow in the currency this year.

Prospects of a sukuk from Tunisia are looking up after the country said it plans to issue dollar denominated bonds and sovereign sukuk with guarantees by America, Japan and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), in the first half of 2014.

Sukuk’s advantageous pricing for borrowers over conventional bonds in recent years has evaporated in the Gulf – leaving only disadvantageous structuring costs in the Islamic market – but it does not follow that sukuk volumes are going to disappear too. Far from changing tack to bonds, for those who can issue both the rationale to favour sukuk is stronger than ever.

CEEMEA bankers are dusting off their Bloomberg terminals in preparation for a resurgence of new issue business next week. DCM and syndicate officials' most conservative estimate for the number of new CEEMEA issues that will be printed next week was three and the most bullish was seven.

The global sukuk market is set to resume growth in 2014 after a mixed 2013 and should exceed $100bn for the third year running, said Standard & Poor’s on Tuesday.

Oil products company Puma Energy priced its debut high yield bond in line with guidance on Tuesday, relying on broad appeal to a varied investor base to overcome the sell-off in emerging market credits.

Oil products company Puma Energy has priced its debut high yield bond in line with guidance on Tuesday, relying on broad appeal to a varied investor base to overcome the sell-off in emerging market credits.

Libya may be gearing up to issue a debut international sukuk, as it seeks alternative funding sources to meet its budget and pay for food imports.

The International Islamic Liquidity Management Corporation (IILM) this week expanded its short term dollar sukuk programme with an $860m three month issue.