FG Plan Roadshow Ahead of $2.8bn Eurobond Sale

Nigerian officials will go on a roadshow to London next week ahead of a planned $2.8 billion Eurobond sale this month, two banking sources told Reuters on Thursday.

The roadshow, which is being organised by Citi and Standard Chartered, would run from November 12, for three days and be attended by Nigerian Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed.

The Senate had last month approved the issuance of $2.786 billion from the International Capital Market to partly finance the 2018 budget. This was sequel to the presentation at plenary of the report on the implementation of the new external capital raising of $2.786 billion from the International Capital Market approved in the 2018 Act by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, Senator Shehu Sani.

In his presentation, Sani had said the committee emphasised the need for the federal government to reduce its request for more external borrowing “and source for other means of generating revenue internally”.

The Senate also observed that the issuance of the bonds will contribute to the implementation of the country’s Debt Management Strategy.

The Director General, Debt Management Office, Ms. Patience Oniha, had explained that in absolute term, Nigeria’s debt stock is not too high, saying “the problem is that we need more revenues so that we are not using a large part of our revenue to service debt.”