[South Africa] African Bank repurchases $207m worth of bonds

African Bank announced on Monday that it has repurchased $207m worth of bonds from its foreign currency-denominated bond holders issued under its $6bn Euro Medium Term Note (EMTN) programme. 

The bank repurchased $134m worth of bonds from US$ bondholders and 79 million Swiss francs worth of bonds from CHF bond holders, amounting to about $207m, given prevailing cross currency rates as at August 31 2016. 

Monday's buyback announcement follows the EMTN public tender offer and open market repurchases announced in July 2016 of $325m worth of bonds. 

After all of the above bond repurchases, the African Bank EMTN programme will have $345m (59% of the original nominal US$ bonds issued) and 157 million Swiss francs (35% of the original nominal CHF bonds issued) in issue, meaning that African Bank has repurchased a weighted average of just under 52% of its EMTN bonds since April 2016. 

African Bank group treasurer Gavin Jones said: “The reduction in the bank's foreign liabilities will further aid the process of restructuring and right-sizing the take-on balance sheet which arose as a result of the African Bank restructuring transaction."

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