Investors balk at Ghana debt offering yield above 20%

Ghana was able to sell only 162.1 million cedis ($30 million) of 20-year bonds with a yield of 20.2 per cent, well short of its target of raising 450 million cedis, Bloomberg reports.

According to the Bloomberg report, Ghana offered debt returning more than 20 per cent on Thursday but investors were not interested.

“The duration is too long for the level of investor confidence in the economy,” Anthony Asare, the Accra-based head of treasury at GCB Bank Ltd., the nation’s biggest lender and a primary dealer in government debt, told Bloomberg. “People are not very certain over that length of time.”

“The yield pick up is not sufficient to compensate for the risk,” Mark Bohlund, an Africa economist at Bloomberg Economics, said in an emailed response to Bloomberg questions. “If you’re a foreign investor then you not only care about the yield on the bond but also at what exchange rate you can repatriate your money.”

Ghana completed a four-year International Monetary Fund program in April, which raised its fiscal deficit projection for the year to 4.5% of gross domestic product from 4.2% in a mid-year review of the budget.

Inflation quickened to 9.4% in the year through July as the cedi declined about 10% against the dollar. The Ministry of Finance warned earlier this month that the country is at “high risk” of debt distress.