Benin’s Debut Dollar Bond Oversubscribed More Than Six Times

  • Country sells $750 million after getting $5 billion demand
  • Appetite for emerging-market debt grows amid US rate-cut hopes

 Romuald Wadagni

Photographer: Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg
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Benin’s debut dollar bond offering was oversubscribed by more than six times as demand for riskier emerging-market assets grows amid expectations of US interest-rate cuts this year.

The West African nation received $5 billion demand and sold $750 million of the debt, Minister of Economy and Finance Romuald Wadagni said in an interview Tuesday. The 14-year instrument, issued at 8.375%, nearly the same rate at which Ivory Coast’s 2037 notes traded earlier on the day, affirms robust demand for junk-rated issuers, Simon Quijano-Evans, chief economist at Gemcorp Capital Management in London, said in a note to clients.