UBA to sell N500bn bonds

The United Bank for Africa Plc, Nigeria’s fourth-biggest lender by market value, has said it plans to sell N500 billion ($3.25 billion) of bonds.
Quoting a statement distributed by the bank on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Bloomberg reports that the bonds will have a seven-year tenor and will be issued in portions.
Shareholders will vote on the proposed sale at a meeting on October 2, 2009 and the issue is subject to regulatory approval, it said, without providing further details. The bond sale comes amid a debt crisis in the Nigerian banking industry that led Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, to dismiss the chief executive officers of five lenders on August 14 and inject N420bn into the banks.
In May, New York-based Eurasia Group said Nigerian banks may have as much as $10 billion in toxic assets.
First Bank of Nigeria Plc, the nation’s biggest lender by market value, said on July 27 it would sell N500bn of bonds. Last week, shareholders of Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Nigeria’s third-biggest bank by market value, approved the sale of N200bn of bonds.
Bloomberg reports that UBA’s spokesman, Mr. Charles Aigbe, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.
Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ajddekyRt.8w