Egypt sells five-year treasury bonds worth EGP 3.5 bln with 17.65% interest

The Securities Listing Committee to reopen trading on five-year treasury bonds that will mature on 3 July 2023, according to a statement by the Egyptian stock exchange.

The reopened trading resulted in an increase in the value of the issuance by EGP 3.5 billion to reach EGP 14.8 billion distributed over 14,825,310 bonds with a face value of EGP 1000 per bond.

The five-year treasury bonds trade with a fixed rate of return of 17.65%, payable every six months on 3 January and 3 July of each year during the active period of the bonds, the statement said.

On Tuesday, the Finance Ministry announced the cancellation of three-year and seven-year treasury bonds worth EGP 3.5 billion on Monday after banks and investors asked for “unrealistic” returns that doesn’t reflect the economic improvement Egypt has been witnessing.

Egypt aims to reach an average interest rate on government debt in the current 2018-2019 fiscal year to about 14.7 percent compared to 18.5 percent in the previous fiscal year 2017-2018, which ended on 30 June 2018, according to Reuters.

Egypt’s required funding in the 2018-2019 budget amounts to EGP 714 billion, of which EGP 511 billion comes from domestic debt instruments and the rest from external financing through bond issuance and the IMF loan, Reuters said.

Speaking at the Euromoney conference in Cairo, Maait said that the government had not set a date yet for the issuance of Euro bonds, or the size of the expected offering.

source: Ahram online