By Agency reporter

Friday, 21 Jan 2011

Nigerian officials on Wednesday met with prospective investors in New York to market the country’s $500m debut Eurobond, due to be issued on Friday.

Minister of Finance, Mr. Olusegun Aganga, led officials from the Debt Management Office, the Central Bank of Nigeria and the finance ministry to the meeting held at the New York Palace hotel.

The team is expected to meet with other investors on Thursday in Boston, joined by another team of Nigerian officials arriving from a road show in London.

The North America Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria quotes Aganga as saying that the meetings with investors were not open to newsmen.

Hence journalists who travelled with the team were asked to stay out of the meetings.

Aganga said, “because this is a private placement, our advisers told us that we are not allowed to talk about it until after the pricing.

“That is under the US rule,’’ he added.

Asked about his expectation for the bond, for which he has previously spoken optimistically about: he said, “At this stage it is premature, we only started meeting with investors yesterday (Tuesday) and tomorrow (Thursday) I will spend the whole day meeting with investors in Boston.

“There is also a team in London which will join us in Boston tomorrow, then we should be able to compare notes and we can come up with something, in terms of expectation.

Aganga said a planned meeting with investors in Los Angeles on Tuesday, was not cancelled, saying “I had all the meetings through the phone yesterday.”

He also did not disclose any details of the meetings by telephone.

NAN recalls that last September, Aganga said Nigeria, Africa’s top oil exporter, planned to use the Eurobond as a benchmark for local companies to price debt and fund development projects.

Some analysts questioned by Reuters on Wednesday expect Nigeria to yield above Gabon’s 2017 Eurobond, which is trading around 5.2 per cent.

Nigeria and Gabon are both oil exporting countries.

According to Reuters, analysts put the expected yield for the 10-year paper in a range of 5.5 to 7.7 per cent, compared with Ghana’s Eurobond, which is due to mature in 2017 and which is currently trading at around 6.2 per cent.

Source: Punch