Nigeria’s Fall Deeper Into Junk Risks Africa’s Best Bond Rally
This article is for subscribers only.
A rally that made Nigerian bonds the best performers in Africa in March risks coming to an end as the credit rating of the continent’s biggest economy slides deeper into junk.
Standard & Poor’s lowered its assessment on Nigeria one level to B+, four levels below investment grade, on March 20, while changing its outlook to stable from negative. Naira bonds returned 2 percent this month, the most among 31 emerging markets after Russia and the Dominican Republic, according to Bloomberg indexes. Naira debt lost 5 percent in February.