Ethiopia Plans Debut Dollar-Bond Joining Ghana, Kenya
Summary
Ethiopia picked Deutsche Bank AG and JPMorgan Chase & Co. for fixed-income investor meetings in Europe and the U.S. beginning tomorrow, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. The Horn of Africa nation is joining issuers, including Ghana, Kenya, Senegal and Ivory Coast, who sold what Standard Bank Group Ltd. says is a record $15 billion of Eurobonds this year. “There is an incentive to issue before U.S. rates start to gradually edge up from next year,” Samir Gadio, head of African strategy at Standard Chartered Plc in London, said today by e-mail. Almost 30 years after pictures of Ethiopian children with distended stomachs were used to raise money by Bob Geldof and Live Aid, the country is growing faster than any other African economy, at an average of 10.9 percent over the past decade, International Monetary Fund data shows. Ethiopia’s planned issue could be assisted by technical factors, such as scarcity, as the Eurobond will be the only tradable asset for international investors wanting access to the African nation, Standard Chartered’s Gadio said.