Zambia

Bondholders are facing “significant losses” as Zambia battles to bring its debt under control, according to Moody’s Investors Service, Bloomberg News reported. They’re now asking: who’s next? The southern African country this week asked for a six-month interest-payment holiday to give it “breathing space” for a debt restructuring, a move that may buy it time but won’t do anything to solve its longer-term debt problems, Moody’s said.

While the world's second largest copper exporter has asked for a delay in paying its interest, Chad, Congo and Angola are also facing serious financial difficulties due to falling oil prices and the pandemic, The Africa Report reported. Will Zambia be the first African state unable to pay its debts after the coronavirus crisis? On 22 September, the world’s second largest copper producer asked its private creditors to defer payment of interest until April. This deferral, which represents a sum of $120m, concerns three bond issues totalling $3bn issued in 2012, 2014 and 2015.

Zambia has asked investors in its US dollar bonds to accept delays in their interest payments into next year, in what would be the first African debt default on private creditors since the pandemic, the Financial Times reported. President Edgar Lungu’s government said on Tuesday that it was seeking “the suspension of debt service payments for a period of six months” from holders of its $3bn worth of international bonds, beginning in October.

The Zambian president has come under fire for the abrupt sacking of the central bank governor in the midst of a debt crisis in the southern African nation whose resolution hinges on bailout talks with the IMF, the Financial Times reported. Denny Kalyalya was fired with immediate effect by Edgar Lungu on Saturday without an official reason being given, at a critical juncture for Africa’s second-biggest copper producer which is struggling to repay more than $11bn of government debts. He was replaced with Christopher Mvunga, a former deputy finance minister and banker.

Zambia was once a model in Wall Street’s rush to issue debt for the world’s poorest nations, attracting bigger orders and lower interest rates than some more-developed countries. Less than a decade later, the Southern African nation is straining to pay back more than $11 billion in loans, The Wall Street Journal reported. The world is gearing up for a battle over developing-country debt like few it has seen before.

Zambia’s newly-formed creditor group is encouraging the government to bring a planned debt overhaul under the scope of an International Monetary Fund bailout, to help put the nation’s public finances on a sound footing, Bloomberg News reported. The government in Lusaka should vet its reform plans with the Washington-based fund and unlock aid to help finance projects to support an economic recovery, according to a representative of investors holding about a third of the nation’s dollar bonds.

Holders of Zambia’s Eurobonds are squaring up for what is likely to be a complex and lengthy debt-restructuring process. A group of lenders owning about a third of the nation’s dollar bonds, and in contact with another third, have formed a committee to negotiate with the government, Bloomberg News reported. Newstate Partners LLP will advise the creditors, who didn’t disclose who they were. Lazard Ltd. is representing Zambia. Zambia is looking to overhaul as much as $11 billion in foreign debt as part of efforts to unlock emergency funding from the International Monetary Fund.

South Africa made it clear it wasn’t seeking any type of debt suspension to fight the coronavirus pandemic, with such measures likely hurting more than they would help due to the high domestic ownership of securities, BloombergQuint reported. “There are a few countries, such as Egypt and South Africa, that aren’t among those” seeking to be involved in debt standstill talks being coordinated by the Institute of International Finance, special envoy Trevor Manuel said in response to emailed questions.

A privately owned power transmission company accused the Zambian government of taking steps to expropriate its assets, as a dispute over supplies to a key mine in Africa’s second-biggest copper producer escalated, Bloomberg News reported. The feud is centered around electricity provision to Konkola Copper Mines, the Vedanta Resources Ltd. unit that the government placed under liquidation a year ago, and which has a $144 million unpaid power bill.

Zambian president Edgar Lungu’s government has hired Lazard to advise on restructuring the cash-strapped southern African nation’s $11bn foreign debts that have threatened to become Africa’s first sovereign default during the coronavirus pandemic, the Financial Times reported. The investment bank was hired on a $5m contract to advise on “liability management” of the country’s debt after a tender process, the Zambian ministry of finance said on Wednesday.