Following a $1.5B announcement, Lebanon successfully sold $3.0B of sovereign Eurobonds to repay its maturing foreign currency debt. The debt issue enclosed 3 maturities: $1.25B of 10Y Eurobonds maturing in 2027 and yielding 6.85%, $1.0B of 15Y Eurobonds yielding at 7.0%, and $750M of 20Y Eurobonds yielding at 7.25%.
The settlement date of the issuance was set on March 23, 2017 with lead managers being: Barclays, Byblos Bank, SGBL and JPMorgan.
Finally, foreign orders were promising as they hovered around 20% (around $600M of the issue) which was explained by the Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil as the result of “an unwavering confidence and interest in Lebanese bonds at a global level”. In fact, interest rates in the emerging markets are going down, while the weighted spread between the Lebanese Eurobonds and their U.S. benchmark is still high. Hence, foreign investors became more interested in the Lebanese portfolio especially after the increase of Lebanon’s weight in the Emerging Market’s Index by almost 1%.
March 2017’s Eurobonds Issuance Details
$1.25B Issuance | $1.0B Issuance | $750M Issuance | |
| Issuer | Republic of Lebanon | Republic of Lebanon | Republic of Lebanon |
| Type | Bond | Bond | Bond |
| Coupon | 6.85% | 7.00% | 7.25% |
| Maturity Date | 2027 | 2032 | 2037 |
Source: Bloomberg