Kenya to Meet Investors This Week About Debut Dollar-Bond Sale -- Source

By Ben Edwards 

Kenya is set to start meeting investors this week about its long-awaited debut dollar-bond sale.

Barclays, J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Standard Bank and QNB Capital, a unit of Qatar National Bank, are arranging the meetings, which will take place in the U.K. and the U.S. between Thursday and June 13, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Kenya had originally planned to issue its debut dollar-bond last fall but delayed the sale amid protracted negotiations with bankers in London, a Finance Ministry official told The Wall Street Journal at the time.

The potential deal could come amid a flurry of African issuance, with Morocco, Ghana and Ivory Coast all expected to sell bonds soon.

So far this year, only Zambia has sold bonds in the global debt market, raising $1 billion from a 10-year deal.

Borrowing costs for African countries rose in the second half of last year after the U.S. Federal Reserve said it would slow the pace of its monetary stimulus program, prompting some investors to pull their cash out of developing economies. But with yields on haven bonds remaining stubbornly low, investors are returning to emerging markets again. Last week, $1.1 billion of cash was pumped into emerging-market debt funds, the ninth consecutive week of inflows, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

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