The Markets

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – The pound slid in a swift turn of fortunes on speculation that a revised Brexit deal negotiated overnight won’t pass Parliament. Sterling fell more than 1 percent after U.K. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox said that legal risks remained over the Irish backstop, damping the prospect of Prime Minister Theresa May garnering enough support from lawmakers in a vote Tuesday. U.K. government bonds erased an earlier decline. “Sterling has been knocked back on the news that…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa) – London’s commerical property market has become the latest casualty of Brexit. Spending on U.K. offices, malls and warehouses plunged more than 40 percent in the first two months of the year to 4.3 billion pounds ($5.6 billion), according to research firm Property Data. With less than three weeks left before the U.K.’s scheduled withdrawal from the European Union, buyers are watching to see if the attempts to prevent a chaotic no-deal withdrawal…

BENIN (Capital Markets in Africa) – Bond investors may be about to welcome a new kid on the emerging-market block: Benin. The West African country — gross domestic product about $10 billion — is readying a series of meetings with would-be takers for a first ever sale of Eurobonds, according to a person familiar with the matter. Citigroup Inc., Natixis SA and Societe Generale SA have been hired to organize the meetings, which will take place…

LUANDA (Capital Markets in Africa) – Angola is opening up its downstream-oil industry to private investors to improve competition, Petroleum Minister Diamantino Azevedo said. The government plans to scrap a law that grants state-owned oil company Sonangol EP a monopoly of the industry, Azevedo said in an interview Thursday in the capital, Luanda. Liberalizing the downstream industry, which includes imports, distribution and storage, may result in “better prices,” he said. “We already initiated the process of liberalization,”…

LONDON (Capital Markets in Africa): Zelter’s firm, Apollo Global Management, is slowly picking off pieces of the finance arm that nearly brought down General Electric Co. Apollo has already bought billions of investments once managed by GE Capital, and it’s been sizing up GE’s insurance and jet-leasing businesses, people familiar with the matter have said. GE’s new leader, Larry Culp, is working to turn around the embattled conglomerate, which expects negative cash flow this year in its industrial businesses. It’s quite a…

JOHANNESBURG (Capital Markets in Africa) – MTN Group Ltd. shares jumped the most in almost three years after Africa’s biggest wireless carrier started a 15 billion-rand ($1.1 billion) disposal plan to shore up the balance sheet. The company agreed to sell its 53 percent stake in Botswana’s Mascom to Econet Global Ltd. for $300 million, the Johannesburg-based company said in a statement on Thursday. Other businesses now on the market include e-commerce services, which includes Nigerian online retailer…

MAPUTO (Capital Markets in Africa) – Mozambique’s Eurobonds have taken a turn for the worse. After ending 2018 as the biggest gainers among more than 70 countries in the Bloomberg Barclays Emerging Markets USD Sovereign Bond Index, they’re at the bottom so far this year. The $727 million of securities due in 2023 have lost 6.9 percent in price terms, which compares with the average return in emerging markets of 3.3 percent. The bonds have been in default…