Egypt’s Upside-Down Bond Market Vindicates Shock Devaluation

CAIRO (Capital Markets in Africa) – A bond-market quirk is vindicating Egypt’s decision to undertake the world’s biggest currency devaluation in at least two years. The yield on the government’s shortest-maturity treasury bills is higher than the rate on its longest debt for the first time since Bloomberg started tracking the market in 2006. That so-called yield inversion is a welcome signal because it points to slower inflation and lower interest rates in the future, according…

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Tanzania Says It May Draw $9.2 Billion in Cement Investment

Tanzania Says It May Draw $9.2 Billion in Cement Investment

DAR ES SALAM (Capital Markets in Africa) – Three companies plan to invest as much as 20 trillion shillings ($9.2 billion) in Tanzanian cement production in projects that could double the nation’s installed capacity, Trade and Industry Minister Charles Mwijage said. The government of East Africa’s second-biggest economy, with gross domestic product of $45 billion, has infrastructure projects planned, including the $10 billion Bagamoyo port development, a $7-billion railway and a $4-billion crude oil pipeline from neighboring…

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Banking Stocks Surprise Wrongfoots South African Money Managers

Banking Stocks Surprise Wrongfoots South African Money Managers

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – Over-defensive South African money managers who have missed their performance benchmarks this year would be better positioned had they read signals that banking stocks were showing greater resilience than expected, according to Richard Schellbach, the equity strategist at Citigroup Inc. This time last year, the outlook for South Africa was starkly different, with the threat of economic recession looming, Schellbach said in an interview in Johannesburg. “But at the end of the…

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Namibia’s central bank maintains repo rate at 7%, inflation lower

Namibia’s central bank maintains repo rate at 7%, inflation lower

Windhoek (Capital Markets in Africa) – Namibia’s central bank left its benchmark repurchase rate steady at 7.0 percent, saying economic growth is expected to improve in 2017 after a slowdown this year and expected inflation to lower in 2017.   The Bank of Namibia, which raised its rate twice this year by a total of 50 basis points, said inflation rose to an average of 6.6 percent in the first 10 months of this year, up…

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Ghanaians Vote in Tight Election as Mahama Seeks Second Term

Ghanaians Vote in Tight Election as Mahama Seeks Second Term

ACCRA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Voting is under way in Ghana as the nation decides whether to grant President John Mahama a second term in office or hand power to his main adversary, Nana Akufo-Addo, in a race observers, say is too close to call. The winner will face the task of reigniting growth in West Africa’s second-biggest economy while reining in inflation and consolidating public debt. Both Mahama, 58, and Akufo-Addo, 72, have pledged to build new infrastructure…

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Zambia to re-finance $2.8 billion Eurobonds in 2017, Nigeria targets 2.1 mln b/d in January

Zambia to re-finance $2.8 billion Eurobonds in 2017, Nigeria targets 2.1 mln b/d in January

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Zambia plans to refinance Eurobonds totalling around $2.8 billion that it issued between 2012 and 2015, Finance Minister Felix Mutati said on Wednesday. “The strategy for the Eurobonds next year is refinancing. We want to refinance the Eurobonds and get longer dated bonds at a bit of lower cost so that we minimise our debt,” Mutati told reporters. Mutati said the equivalent of 19 percent of Zambia’s gross domestic…

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Nigeria’s President to submit 2017 fiscal budget to legislatures on Dec.14

Nigeria’s President to submit 2017 fiscal budget to legislatures on Dec.14

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) – Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari plans to submit next year’s spending plan to lawmakers on Dec. 14, according to a letter read to parliament on Tuesday, with government sources saying the 2017 budget would be 7.2 trillion naira ($23.65 billion). The record spending plan will seek to boost spending to help pull Africa’s largest economy out of its first recession in 25 years, caused largely by low global oil prices….

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