Energy bond unsuccessful after two attempts

Government failed to meet its target for the first tranche of the energy bond after a second attempt.

The government was seeking to raise 6 billion cedis under two separate bonds.

But it accrued a total of 4.6 billion cedis after it closed the auction last Friday.

The 7-year bond received the targeted 2.4 billion cedis while the 10-year bond accrued about 2.2 billion cedis, below the target of 3.6 billion cedis.

The managers also accepted an interest rate of 19.5% for the 10-year bond.

Government a week earlier auctioned the bond but received low proceeds forcing it to extend the auction by another week.

Proceeds of the bond are to be used to clear the debt in the energy sector which as at December 2016 was 2.5 billion dollars.

It is unclear what government’s next move will be following the poor performance of the bond.

Government in June this year announced Fidelity Bank and Standard Chartered Bank as lead managers of the bond.

In October, two road shows were conducted both locally and internationally which managers described as plausible.

Initially, the two bonds were extended for a day.

At the time, the managers attributed the decision to requests by some large investors.

But the decision to extend the 10 year bond for a week was not known.

Economist, Dr. Lord Mensah had predicted that government will not be paying an interest rate of less than 20 percent.

He argued that this is evident from rates paid on previous sovereign bonds issued by the government.

Reacting to possible reasons for the under subscription, Investment Banker, Mahama Iddrisu blamed the development on the political composition of the board, as well as the impact of low liquidity due to the operation of a Treasury Single Account (TSA).

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