FOOTNOTES
HILARY JOFFE: Treasury pulls off dollar bonds placement despite emerging market headwinds
The timing was hardly perfect, yet the Treasury and its bankers managed to get the issue placed successfully
The worst day for emerging market currencies in 2018 was when SA chose to tap global capital markets for a total of $2bn in dollar bonds on Tuesday. The timing was hardly perfect, yet the Treasury and its bankers managed to get the issue placed successfully. The Treasury hailed it (as it generally does) as "an expression of investor confidence in the country’s sound macroeconomic policy framework and prudent fiscal management". Market players were suitably impressed. The pricing was reasonably attractive, with the $1.4bn in 12-year bonds priced at 5.875% and $600m in 30-year bonds at 6.3%. It might be easy to see this as evidence that President Cyril Ramaphosa and new-old Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene are winning the battle for international investors’ hearts and minds. Yet the pricing of this latest bond was worse than that of the international bonds issued in 2017 when Jacob Zuma was president and Malusi Gigaba was finance minister — or even the one issued in September 2016 when ...
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