Sturdy Demand Characterized Lebanon’s Latest $2.2B Eurobonds Issuance

Following a $1B announcement, Lebanon successfully sold $2.2B of sovereign Eurobonds lately, the biggest foreign debt issuance in its history. Investors’ appetite for the issuance was substantial as bids almost reached 5 times the requested amount, hovering at $4.9B. This mainly reveals the continuous confidence in Lebanon’s ability to settle its obligations and the robustness of its banking sector. On a different note, the Finance Minister revealed that a $300M exchange offer would take place by mid-year.

Back to the debt issuance, it enclosed 2 new categories: $800M of 10Y Eurobonds maturing in 2025 and yielding 6.20%, and $1.4B of 15Y Eurobonds yielding at 6.65%. The settlement date of the issuance was set on February 26, 2015 with lead managers being: BLOM Bank, Citi, and Société Générale des Banques au Liban (SGBL). Besides the strong demand from Lebanon’s local banks, Banque du Liban (BdL) also took a share of the new issuance. Finally, international orders were promising as they hovered around 15% which could be partly due to the overflowing cash in the global financial markets following the decreasing oil prices.

2015’s Eurobonds Issuance Details

Source: Bloomberg