With the improvement in financial market conditions seen over the last few months, a number of African countries are reviving or devising plans to launch US dollar denominated bonds – or Eurobonds. While the majority of the volume will come from the larger, better established economies like Nigeria, Kenya and Angola, smaller players are also [Read more...]

After months of mulling over the possibility of a Eurobond sale, Angolan authorities confirmed last month that the issue would go ahead in the early 2010. The amount being sought is reported to be close US$4.0bn – quite a sum for country whose nominal GDP is only about US$100bn. To my mind, the decision to [Read more...]

With risk appetite still on and markets racing ahead, I have been seeking out some of the more unconventional, ‘frontier’ plays. These are not for the faint-hearted but I like the look of several sovereign bonds – Ghana’s US$ 2017 global bond, Republic of Congo’s US$ 2029 global bond and Ukraine’s US$ 2013 global bond. [Read more...]

Mexico has made a bid to become part of the emerging market (EM) elite by stating that it too may decide to lend to the IMF, either through a direct loan or the purchase of IMF debt. The announcement on June 12 by central bank governor Guillermo Ortiz came shortly after EM heavyweights Russia and [Read more...]

As the macroeconomic and financial market maelstrom continues to engulf the Emerging Europe region, one of the questions I’m asked most is the prospects for sovereign defaults in 2009. With benchmark government bonds and CDS spreads across the region continuing to widen towards record levels, the fears of the dreaded ‘D’ word seem to increase [Read more...]

Latvia is the newest victim of the credit crunch. This is not official. No formal application has been made for an IMF bail-out package, nor has it made the front pages of any major newspaper of record on the continent. That said, with the economy contracting by 4.2% in the third quarter (down from 10.1% [Read more...]