FG appoints Stanbic IBTC and Goldman Sachs as financial advisers for $300 million diaspora bond

The federal government has reportedly appointed Stanbic IBTC, the local unit of South Africa’s Standard Bank, and Goldman Sachs, an American investment banking giant, as financial advisers for a proposed $300 million diaspora bond.

The diaspora bond, which is expected to be issued in the second half of the year, is targeted at Nigerians living abroad, who sent home over $20 billion in remittances in 2015.

Kemi Adeosun announced earlier in January that the National Assembly had approved the diaspora bond and the proceeds will be used to support the government’s development agenda. She said the diaspora bond will be rolled out after the government completes the $1 billion Eurobond. pipeline system – may reopen by the end of the second quarter of this year, according to Reuters.

The pipeline was shut down for most of last year owing to frequent sabotage by Niger Delta militants. The pipeline transports crude oil to the Forcados Export Terminal, which has an export capacity of over 400,000 barrels per day. Repair work on the pipeline recently resumed after the federal government began seeking a peace deal with the militants.

With the expected return on stream of the pipeline, Avuru said he expects Seplat to achieve a “decent” oil production this year. The continued outage of the pipeline caused Seplat to report a $97.8 million loss for the nine-month period ended September 30th, 2016.