Africa

Ghana received “overwhelming” participation and support from its international bondholders to restructure $13 billion of eurobonds, a key step marking the conclusion of the West African nation’s debt rework, Bloomberg News reported. Eligible holders representing 98.6% of outstanding bonds agreed to a debt exchange following a consent solicitation, paving the way for the government to issue new bonds to investors to replace existing ones, Minister of Finance Mohammed Amin Adam said in the capital, Accra on Thursday. Investors will swap their securities for new notes on or around Oct.

Investors holding Ethiopia’s defaulted dollar bonds have rejected the debt-restructuring terms proposed by the government for the $1 billion issue, Bloomberg News reported. An ad hoc committee representing holders of the sovereign notes maturing Dec. 2024 said Ethiopia’s proposal of an 18% haircut on the bond’s principal is “wholly inconsistent” with the nation’s economic fundamentals. “The committee does not consider the illustrative terms to be a reasonable starting point for negotiation,” it said in a statement Thursday.

Mozambique remained the only African central bank this year to reduce borrowing costs at each of its rate-setting meetings and signaled more easing to come, Bloomberg News reported. The Banco de Moçambique on Monday lowered its benchmark rate, known by its Portuguese acronym Mimo, to 13.5% from 14.25%, Governor Rogerio Zandamela said, matching the scale of its four prior cuts in 2024. “The assessment of risks and uncertainties associated with inflation projections remains favorable,” Zandamela said.

South Africa’s central bank cut interest rates for the first time in four years and signaled a more optimistic outlook for inflation, Bloomberg News reported. The monetary policy committee reduced its benchmark rate by 25 basis points to 8%, Governor Lesetja Kganyago told reporters at a briefing north of Johannesburg on Thursday. That matched the median estimate of 24 economists in a Bloomberg survey. Only one analyst had penciled in a 50 basis-point cut.

Zimbabwe’s creditors may be willing to consider a debt-for-climate swap with the nation as part of a restructure of its $21 billion in arrears, Bloomberg News reported. Interactions with the nation’s development partners indicate it is “an option that they are willing to consider,” Raul Fernandez, a United Nations Development Program project manager for climate development frameworks, said at a summit Monday hosted by the country’s Treasury in the resort city of Victoria Falls. “They need to see some action from the government, this commitment to structural reforms,” he said.

South Africa's Land Bank has reached an agreement with its lenders to cure its debt default, the South African government said on Friday, Reuters reported. The state-owned agricultural bank defaulted on its debt in April 2020 and missed a restructuring deadline in March 2021. It had failed to agree a "liability solution" to emerge from default until now. "This... provides a basis for the bank's turnaround and rebuilding of its essential role in the South African economy and the agricultural sector in particular," the government said in a statement issued on behalf of Land Bank.

South Africa's justice minister on Friday denied corruption allegations against her related to a mutual bank scandal in which thousands of retirees lost their life savings, the Associated Press reported. VBS Mutual Bank, which held the savings of retirees mostly from the northern Limpopo province and also unlawfully secured investments from local municipalities, was declared insolvent and bankrupt in 2018 after it emerged that more than 2 billion rand ($112 million) had been stolen from the bank.

A group of Ghana’s commercial creditors including BlackRock Inc. and Abrdn Plc backed the government’s offer to exchange about $13 billion of eurobonds for restructured notes, a crucial part of the West African nation’s debt rework, Bloomberg News reported. “The committee considers that the legal and financial terms of the exchange offer and consent solicitation are in line with the agreement in principle reached between the committee and Ghana in June,” the group said in a statement on Thursday. Investors will be able to swap their debt until Sept.

Kenya’s local borrowing costs are stuck near the highest in almost a decade as uncertainty over funding options mounts, Bloomberg News reported. Protests over tax hikes sought by the International Monetary Fund turned deadly in June and ultimately forced the government to backtrack. With the latest IMF aid tranche on hold for now, officials are opting instead to boost sales of shilling-denominated bonds, keeping yields on the local debt elevated. While a surprise interest-rate cut last month has lowered yields across the curve, borrowing costs remain close to the highest since December 2015.