Cairo
Egypt will begin approaching investment banks in a few days for a planned sale of euro-denominated bonds after successfully raising $4 billion from international bond markets to finance the budget deficit and bolster foreign reserves, Finance Minister Amr Al Garhy said.
The sale will “ideally” take place in April, and Egypt will be seeking European banks to manage the issuance, the minister said in a phone interview. On Tuesday, the government received about $12 billion in offers from investors as it sold dollar-denominated bonds, in what the minister described as a “vote of confidence,” in the Egyptian economy.
Egypt is tapping foreign bond investors to reduce its borrowing costs, with yields on five-year local-currency debt almost triple what the government pays for dollar bonds. The latest sale brings to $11 billion the total amount of international bonds Egypt has sold since floating the currency and securing a $12 billion International Monetary Fund programme in 2016.
Tuesday’s issuance was broken down into three parts: $1.25 billion in five-year notes with a yield of 5.58 per cent, $1.25 billion in 10-year notes with a 6.59 per cent yield; and $1.5 billion in 30-year notes with a yield of 7.9 per cent, the Finance Ministry said in an emailed statement.
