Egypt's ministry of finance successfully issued and priced a three-tranche USD 4 billion Euro bond only few hours in to into its launch, the ministry announced in a statement. According to the ministry's statement issued late on Tuesday, the three tranches are broken down as follows: USD 1.25 billion in five-year notes with a yield of 5.5%, USD 1.25 billion in ten-year notes with a yield of 6.59% and USD 1.5 billion in thirty- year notes with a yield of 7.91%. The statement said that despite the turbulence in global markets over the past two weeks, the sale of the Eurobonds was three-times oversubscribed only a few hours into its launch, opening with a total order book worth of USD 12 billion from more than 550 investors. "The oversubscription of the bonds following their launch in few hours reflected the confidence of the international community in Egypt's economic reform policies," Minister of Finance Amr El-Garhy said in the statement. He added that the Eurobonds, in addition to the International Monetary Fund's agreement with Egypt, as well reform steps taken by the state, would be able to fill in the finance gap in the fiscal year 2017/2018. El-Garhy also stated that the USD proceedings of the bonds would be used to support the Central Bank of Egypt's foreign reserves, while the Egyptian pound proceedings would be used to finance the budget. Egypt's return to international bond markets comes after a nine-month break, according to Deputy Finance Minister Ahmed Kojak, who was also quoted in the statement. Kojak added that the oversubscription of the Eurobonds attracted more than 550 investors from the targeted markets in Europe, the United States, Asia and the Middle East. "We received very big offers to oversubscribe the Eurobonds, including USD 500 million from one investor," Kojak said in the statement.
