INTO AFRICA: BNP ENTERS NEW TERRITORY

摘要

A sovereign bond issue by Rwanda took the capital markets into uncharted territory, but the syndicate team at BNP Paribas found investors keen to seize the opportunity to diversify their portfolios.Yield - hungry investors are lapping up bonds from emerging market sovereigns that once they would not have touched with a bargepole. Countries such as Albania, Angola and Honduras are now joined by Rwanda, which, having almost destroyed itself through genocide in 1994, still depends on foreign aid for 40% of its budget. While some predict this trend will end badly, others insist it merely reflects how the world economy is changing. BNP Paribas, joint bookrunner on the Rwanda issue, is in the latter camp.