DMO moves to issue eurobonds to pick advisers in open bids

The Debt Management Office (DMO) has disclosed that it is working on issuing eurobonds and planning to appoint transaction advisers through an open bid process.

Patience Oniha, director-general of DMO, disclosed this in an interview with Reuter on Wednesday, April 7, explained that the amount to be raised would be within the foreign borrowing plans for 2021.

It was learnt that the federal government had budgeted to raise N2.34 trillion ($6.14 billion) from foreign sources.

DMO had previously planned to select advisers for a $3.3 billion eurobond issue through an open competitive bid process. Meanwhile, the sale was deferred due to the negative impact caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Office planned to use last year’s eurobond sale to partly fund the 2020 budget deficit and refinance an existing $500 million eurobond due in January 2021.

In February 2021, the federal government reduced its external borrowings in a new debt strategy after it repaid a $500 million eurobond in January.

Speaking further, Oniha noted that the DMO was monitoring international markets for new issues by frontier countries.

Recall that the DMO held its last eurobond sale in 2018 (its sixth sale) where it raised $2.86 billion and issued a record $10.7 billion of international bonds in the same year.

Techeconomy.ng previously reported that the DMO had announced that the federal government’s bonds for March worth N150bn which were auctioned on Wednesday were oversubscribed by N183.48bn.