IFC begins marketing Rwanda Bond as Africa Debt plan expands

The International Finance Corp. started marketing local-currency bonds in Rwanda, which is marking 20 years since a genocide that killed at least 800,000 people, as it expands an African debt program.

The debt will be sold in Rwandan francs and listed on the nation’s bourse, Standard Bank Group Ltd., which is arranging the sale with CfC Stanbic Bank and Bank of Kigali Ltd., said in an e-mailed statement.

“The timing and size of the bond will be at the issuer’s discretion,” Johannesburg-based Standard Bank said. The sale is “subject to market conditions,” the company said.

The World Bank debuted its Pan-Africa Domestic Medium-Term Note Programme with the sale of 150 million Zambian kwacha ($24 million) of Zambezi notes in September last year in an offer that was 4.8 times oversubscribed.

Africa may become the IFC’s biggest portfolio by 2016, Chief Risk Officer Saadia Khairi said in an interview in Frankfurt in November.

The lender has been in talks with the governments of Botswana, Kenya, Namibia, South Africa and Uganda about local-currency issuances.

The market regulator in the central African nation has already approved the IFC securities and they be sold in May, Rwanda Stock Exchange Chief Executive Officer Celestine Rwabukumba said. The bond will be the fourth on the bourse, he said.

“The listing of the bond will increase the number of transactions on RSE, which translates into increased liquidity and diversification,” Rwabukumba said.

In February, Rwanda received record demand at the first sale of debt in francs since 2011 and the country said it would offer more debt in May, August and November.

Rwanda is the only East African nation to have issued a Eurobond, raising $400 million in 2013. The debt has returned 7.4 percent in 2014, the second-best best in Africa , according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes.