Lithuania has successfully tapped international capital markets with a €500mn benchmark 5-year Eurobond transaction due 2014, with an annual coupon of 9.375%.
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West African oil independent Afren has raised £84.8mn (US$126.3mn) by a placing of 265mn new ordinary shares of 1 penny each in the capital of the company with institutional investors at 32 pence per share.
The EMEA debt capital markets re-opened in May, with new issuance particularly strong in the sovereign sector, as investors re-gained their appetite for emerging market issuance.
The UAE has announced it intends to leave the GCC monetary union project, reportedly over concerns about plans to locate the union's central bank in Riyadh. Analysts say its departure leaves the project in disarray.
Vodacom, the South African mobile phone company, overcame last-minute political obstacles to successfully raise US$3.5bn in its listing on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange on May 18. The company also sold a 15% stake to Vodafone, giving the UK mobile company a 65% controlling stake in the firm.
Stemcor, the UK-based steel trader, cheered the commodity finance market with a US$480mn renewal of its revolving credit facility. The new loan is US$80mn more than the company hoped to raise.
Mobile TeleSystems (MTS), the largest mobile phone operator in Russia and the CIS, has signed a facility agreement to refinance a portion of its US$1.33bn syndicated loan facility.
US banks are scrambling to raise billions of dollars in equity, in order to pay back funds they have borrowed from the US government. Investors, meanwhile, have regained faith in financial stocks.
Saudi Arabia’s Jabal Omar Development Company has terminated a contract with the local investment bank Jadwa Investment to raise SR12.2bn (US$3.3bn) to finance the development of a real estate project in Mecca.
AngloGold Ashanti, the world’s third-largest producer of the metal, announced the pricing of an offering of US$650mn convertible bonds due 2014 by its wholly-owned subsidiary, AngloGold Ashanti Holdings Finance.
South Africa issued a 10-year foreign bond worth US$1.5bn on May 19. It was priced at +375 basis points over US Treasuries.
Kazkommertsbank, one of the largest banks in