Kenya Invites JPMorgan to Be Lead Manager for Inaugural Eurobond

Kenya, East Africa’s largest economy, invited JPMorgan Chase & Co. to arrange the sale of a debut Eurobond that it plans to issue by January, Treasury Secretary Henry Rotich said.

After negotiations to hire the lead manager, which will probably be completed in the next week or two, Kenya will start marketing the securities abroad over about six-weeks and then issue the dollar-denominated debt, Rotich said in a phone interview today from the capital, Nairobi. In September, Rotich said the country planned to raise $1.5 billion to $2 billion to repay a $600 million syndicated loan and finance infrastructure including rail links and power-generation projects.