By Emmanuel Oluebube, Correspondent UK

The Lomé based parent company of the Ecobank Group  Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI), was hosted  Wednesday by the London Stock Exchange for a market opening virtual ceremony to celebrate the successful listing of the Tier 2 Sustainability Notes on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) main market. This represents the first ever Tier 2 Sustainability Notes by a financial institution in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This Tier 2 issuance is the first to have a Basel III-compliant 10NC5 structure outside of South Africa in 144A/RegS format and is now listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange. The bond, which matures in June 2031, has a call option in June 2026 and was issued with a coupon of 8.75 per cent with interest payable semi-annually in arrears.

An equivalent amount of the net proceeds from the notes will be used by ETI to finance or re-finance, new or existing eligible assets as described in ETI’s Sustainable Finance Framework, available at https://bit.ly/3j4xrlb on which DNV issued a Second Party Opinion.

Investor interest for this Sophomore Eurobond issue was global, including United Kingdom, United States, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, achieving a 3.6x oversubscribed orderbook, of over US$1.3 billion at its peak.

Group Chief Executive Officer of ETI, Ade Ayeyemi stated: “The strong global interest in our issuance reflects investors’ confidence in Ecobank’s strategy and our commitment to sustainable financing. We thank the LSE for hosting ETI today and look forward to value creation for all our stakeholders. ”.

The Joint Lead Managers & Bookrunners in the transaction were Citi, Mashreq, Renaissance Capital and Standard Chartered Bank.