Market conditions ruined 1st Cameroonian Eurobond- Finance Minister

The first Eurobond in the Cameroonian finance history did not go well as expected, according to the Minister of Finance, Alamine Ousmane Mey.

Ousmane said the Eurobond only helped gather about FCfa 375 billion, out of the FCfa 750 billion expected while defending the 2016 Finance bill of the State of Cameroon in the presence of the Finance Commission in Parliament, on December 2, 2015.

However, Minister Ousmane Mey explained, the money garnered as part of this fundraising operation was not the consequence of a lack of interest from investors.

According to him, even though funds were available to raise the full amount of requested resources, the government and its arrangers had to operate a downward revision of their ambitions, “discouraged” as they were by extremely rigid and unfavourable conditions for the Cameroonian public Treasury.

This market rigidity, for example, led Angola to postpone the issuance of its USD 1.5 billion, in September. The Eurobond was finally issued in November and was subscribed at an interest rate of 9.5% over 10 years. Same case for Ghana, who, despite a guarantee from the World Bank, also hesitated in October 2015 before issuing its Eurobond of USD 1 billion.

The Ghanaian public Treasury only succeeded by agreeing to serve an interest rate of 10.75% to investors, but with a maturity of 15 years.