Nigeria: UBA to terminate $500 million Eurobond early ahead of fresh debt offering

United Bank for Africa (UBA) will invite interests from holders of its $500 million Eurobond due for maturity in 2022 for redemption ahead of time through a cash tender offer before issuing a new similar note, the lender announced Monday.

The five-year senior unsecured bond, the first of that kind from the bank when it was offered over four years ago, drew overwhelming interest at the point when it was priced at 7.75 per cent and subscription trumped offer by more than double.

Towards issuing the fresh dollar-denominated note, UBA has commissioned five managers – Standard Chartered Bank, Citigroup Global Markets Limited, Renaissance Securities (Cyprus) Limited, United Capital Plc and Mashreqbank psc – to convene a call for global investors linked to a number of other meetings.

Shares in UBA jumped 0.59 per cent, trading at N8.45 per share at 12:25 WAT on Monday following the news.

For the nine-month period to September, UBA upped profit by 36 per cent to N105 billion, bucking the trend of little or marginal profit growth among its other Big 5 banks’ peers.