Egypt, investors to meet this week ahead of euro-denominated bond

Egypt meets bond investors in Europe this week ahead of a potential euro-denominated bond issue, a document from one of the banks appointed to arrange the meetings showed on Tuesday.

The document showed that Egypt has mandated Banca IMI, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Bank as joint book runners.

Investor meetings will start on April 4 ahead of a potential benchmark-sized bond, which normally means upwards of 500 million dollars.

Subject to market conditions, the country will proceed with the planned debt sale after the meetings, offering notes with maturities of eight and/or 12 years, according to the document.

Egypt has already raised four billion dollars through a triple-tranche bond in February.

Last year, it issued seven billion dollars in international bonds.

It did it through a four billion dollars trade in January, and a re-opening of the same bond in May. BNP Paribas, Citigroup, JP Morgan and Natixis arranged the issues.

Egypt’s economy has been struggling since a 2011 uprising drove tourists and foreign investors away.

However, it has recovered over the past year after signing a 12 billion dollars International Monetary Fund deal in late 2016 to boost growth.

In a recent poll by the media, Middle East fund managers said they were bullish on Egypt because of an improving macroeconomic outlook.

The country is ramping up natural gas production, and political stability. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi won a second term in national elections, official results showed on Monday.