Cleary Gottlieb represented the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire in an international sovereign bond offering of €850 million 5.250 percent amortizing notes due 2030 and €850 million 6.625 percent amortizing notes due 2048.
The offering priced on March 15, 2018, and closed on March 22, 2018. Net proceeds will be used to finance investments under Côte d’Ivoire’s budget, including the National Development Plan’s priority structural projects in the sectors of education, health, infrastructures, trade, and culture.
The notes were issued to investors in the United States pursuant to Rule 144A and outside of the U.S. pursuant to Regulation S, and were admitted to trading on the Regulated Market of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange. With a final maturity of 30 years for one of the two tranches of euro-denominated notes, the issuance marks, together with the Republic of Senegal’s offering which closed on March 13, 2018, and for which Cleary was also counsel, one of the longest maturity debt instruments ever issued by a sub-Saharan African sovereign, other than South Africa. This issuance is also one of the largest sovereign bond offerings in euros in Africa to date.
The bond offering represents the Republic’s fourth international offering on the primary capital markets, after its successful offerings of $750 million in 2014, $1 billion in 2015, and $1.25 billion and €625 million in 2017, on all of which the firm represented the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire.