Viathan’s N10bn InfraCredit-Guaranteed Bond Wins Awards

InfraCredit’s maiden guaranteed bond, the Viathan N10 billion Series 1 Senior Guaranteed Fixed Rate Bond Due 2027, was recently announced winner in the Debt Capital Markets Category of the EMEA Finance Achievement Awards as the Most Innovative Bond 2018.

Viathan Group develops and operates captive and embedded power solutions for governmental, commercial and residential offtakers across Nigeria, using natural gas as fuel with a combined generation capacity of over 50MW.

According to a statement, with InfraCredit’s guarantee, Viathan successfully accessed the local debt capital markets for the first time by issuing a N10 billion 16.0% Series 1 Senior Guaranteed Fixed Rate Bond Due 2027. InfraCredit is a ‘AAA’-rated infrastructure credit enhancement facility backed by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, GuarantCo (a Private Infrastructure Development Group company), KfW Development Bank and Africa Finance Corporation to provide local currency guarantees to enhance the creditworthiness of debt issued by infrastructure entities in Nigeria that conform with its eligibility criteria.

Its guarantees act as a catalyst to mobilise private investments from pension funds, insurance firms and other long-term investors into infrastructure bonds, thereby deepening the domestic debt capital markets.

“Over the past two years of its initial operations InfraCredit has facilitated first-time access to local currency finance of up to 15- year tenor from the domestic bond market for two infrastructure companies totalling N18.5 billion which were oversubscribed by up to 60 per cent from local pension fund investors, with participation by 14 of a total 28 pension fund administrators subscribing to the InfraCredit-guaranteed corporate infrastructure bonds.