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Investors Scramble for Nigeria’s Bonds Despite Recession

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Investors are lining up to buy dollar bonds Nigeria is expected to issue soon despite the country’s first recession in a quarter of a century, a currency crisis and budget shortfalls driven by low oil prices.

On the face of it, the $1 billion ($A1.3 billion) of bonds Nigeria hopes to sell by the end of March might seem unattractive, especially at a time sentiment towards African debt has soured after Mozambique missed a coupon payment.

But investors hungry for higher returns in a low interest rate environment reckon Nigeria’s benign debt levels, recovering foreign exchange reserves and a potential yield above seven per cent are reasons enough to look beyond the country’s economic woes.

“Nigeria’s starting position is one of low debt so if they price it attractively they will be able to get it done,” said Claudia Calich, who manages an emerging market bond fund at M&G Investments.

Nigeria’s Eurobond has been a long time coming. A year ago, Nigeria appeared to have shelved the idea in favour of a loan from China, but it embarked on an investor roadshow for the bond late last year in the United States and Britain.

Nigeria is Africa’s biggest economy, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and vies with Angola for the position of top oil producer, but that also means it is very exposed to fluctuations in the oil market.

The last time Nigeria issued dollar-denominated bonds in July 2013, oil was comfortably above $US100 a barrel but the slump in prices from $US115 in June 2014 to just $US28 a barrel by January 2016 has hurt the West African country’s economy.

Crude oil sales account for two-thirds of government revenue and about 90 per cent of foreign exchange earnings so the price slide, coupled with a resurgence in militant attacks on oil facilities in the Niger Delta, have had a severe impact.

According to the World Bank, Nigeria’s economy probably shrank 1.7 per cent in 2016, underperforming an average growth rate of 1.5 per cent across sub-Saharan Africa and way behind high-flying economies such as Ivory Coast.

Foreign investment has almost ground to a halt, hobbled by a slide in the naira currency – which trades on the black market at about 40 per cent below the official rate of 300 per dollar – and expectations the currency may have to be devalued again.

World Bank data shows net foreign direct investment tumbled to just over $US3 billion in 2015 from nearly $US9 billion in 2011 and the government needs to borrow $US3.5 billion internationally this year to balance a record 2017 budget.

International lenders such as the World Bank and African Development Bank (AfDB) are also holding back on loans until Nigeria comes up with a plan to make its economy more resilient.

Yet, bond investors seem undeterred.

They argue that a Eurobond issued in dollars will shield them from currency risk and, compared to its African peers, Nigeria has a low ratio of public debt to annual economic output, implying that default is not a worry.

The ratio of Nigeria’s total public debt to gross domestic product is 22 per cent compared with 46 per cent in Gabon, 62 per cent in Ghana or 73 per cent in Angola, according to estimates by Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

While businesses in Nigeria are having trouble getting hold of dollars, the country’s foreign exchange reserves are on the rise again. They hit an eight-month high of $US26.6 billion at the start of 2017 and have since climbed to $US28.9 billion.

“The government has access to hard currency even if they are restricting the access of other agents in the economy,” said Kieran Curtis, investment director at Standard Life Investments, who also plans to look at Nigeria’s upcoming bond issue.

Curtis reckons that Nigeria’s low debt ratios will allow it to borrow more cheaply than Ghana. Nigeria’s existing 2023 dollar bond yields about 6.7 per cent, or 170 basis points lower than Ghana’s 2023 bond.

Egypt, which has a credit rating of B-minus/B3/B from the main agencies, was marketing $US4 billion of Eurobonds in three tranches on Tuesday, offering a 10-year bond at 7.5 per cent. Nigeria is rated one to two notches higher at B/B1/B plus.

Nigeria’s last 10-year bond sold in July 2013 had a 6.375 per cent coupon but Exotix Partners head of fixed income research Stuart Culverhouse said a new issue would have to offer a yield of 7.0 per cent to 7.5 per cent.

“(Nigeria) might have to accept that people are charging more for them because of the situation. It could be a reality check,” he said.

If the country were to press ahead with reforms to alleviate pressure on the naira before issuing a bond, it could help lower the cost of borrowing, M&G’s Calich said.

“Then they could bring a new deal at tighter spreads. The big question is the currency regime.”

Although oil prices are now expected to stabilise above $US50 following OPEC’s decision to curb output, there are a few more clouds on the horizon.

The budget deficit for 2017 risks ballooning further as the government tries to boost the economy with record spending on roads and power.

Many also see the budget’s oil output projection of 2.2 million barrels per day as optimistic. Oil production, curbed by persistent attacks in the Niger Delta, was just 1.63 million barrels a day in the third quarter and was still below 1.8 million barrels per day in December.

Second, while emerging economies have been tapping the market in near-record numbers in January, sub-Saharan African borrowers have been absent and Mozambique’s coupon miss has not helped.

But Calich said there were no such fears for Nigeria.

“It will take a big shock to get into that kind of distress … we are far from that at this point.”


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FG Unveils AI Public Services Platform

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Federal government has launched GovGuideNigeria, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered digital platform designed to streamline access to public service information through WhatsApp and the web.

The platform consolidates information from more than 35 federal ministries and over 60 government agencies, marking a significant step in Nigeria’s drive to expand AI-enabled public infrastructure and digital government services.

According to Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s minister of communications, innovation and digital economy, the initiative aims to simplify interactions with government services, particularly for underserved communities that often face challenges navigating complex public-sector systems.

Developed in collaboration with the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Meta, and Publica AI, GovGuideNigeria uses conversational AI to provide real-time responses via WhatsApp and a web interface in English, Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.

Sade Dada, head of public policy at Meta, said the multilingual rollout highlights the growing use of natural language processing within African public institutions to improve digital inclusion and broaden access to services.

Ignatius Willie, chief executive of Publica AI, said the platform demonstrates how Africa’s next generation of digital public infrastructure can be developed locally using African languages.

GovGuideNigeria is intended to address longstanding challenges in Nigeria’s public information system, where citizens often struggle to access reliable guidance because of fragmented government websites, poor communication channels and the expense of travelling to physical offices.

Through AI-driven automation, users can obtain information on immigration procedures, documentation requirements, public programmes and agency-specific services through chat-based interactions.

The launch also reflects Nigeria’s broader ambition to integrate AI into digital governance, while strengthening partnerships between government agencies, global technology companies and local AI startups to modernise public service delivery.


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Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

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Elon Musk is poised to become the world’s first trillionaire after  SpaceX, his company, confirmed plans to go public.

Elon Musk to Become First World’s Trillionaire with SpaceX Historic IPO

Elon Musk

Because Musk owns the majority of the shares, it could push his net worth over the trillion dollar mark.

The entrepreneur is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X, and xAI.

Musk has been the wealthiest person in the world since 2025; as of May 2026, Forbes estimates his net worth to be $788 billion.

SpaceX has filed for a blockbuster public listing in the United States, paving the way for what could become the largest stock market debut in Wall Street history.

The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies, announced plans to begin trading under the ticker symbol “SPCX” as early as next month.

The listing values SpaceX at about $1.25 trillion, with Musk’s majority ownership potentially worth more than $600 billion alone.

Combined with his existing holdings in companies including Tesla, the IPO could push Musk’s personal wealth above the $1 trillion mark.

The long-awaited filing also offered investors a rare look into SpaceX’s finances.

The company reported $18.6 billion in revenue last year but recorded a net loss of $4.9 billion. In the first quarter of this year, SpaceX generated $4.7 billion in sales while posting a $4.3 billion net loss.

Financial disclosures showed the company holds $102 billion in assets, including rockets, launch infrastructure and satellite systems, while carrying debts totalling $60.5 billion.

Despite the losses, analysts suggested investors were unlikely to be deterred given SpaceX’s dominance in commercial space launches and satellite internet services.

Ruth Foxe-Blader, managing partner at Citrine Venture Partners, described the planned flotation as “extremely exciting.”

“SpaceX is just an absolutely sprawling, enormous project with so many different selling points, and so many points that really point to the future,” she said.

SpaceX operates the Starlink satellite internet network and also owns Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI.

The IPO filing revealed that xAI recently reached a major commercial agreement with rival AI company Anthropic, maker of the Claude chatbot.

Under the arrangement, Anthropic will reportedly pay $15 billion annually to access data centre infrastructure linked to xAI operations in the American South.

The filing also disclosed that SpaceX expects to incur more than half a billion dollars in legal costs from multiple ongoing lawsuits and regulatory disputes.

Among the cases listed were claims alleging that xAI’s chatbot Grok had been used to create sexualised deepfakes of women and girls, alongside patent infringement disputes, music copyright claims, data breach allegations and investigations into compliance with European Union content moderation rules.

Musk has previously said he plans to dissolve xAI as a standalone company and pursue his AI ambitions directly under SpaceX.

The filing came shortly after Musk lost a high-profile legal battle against OpenAI and its chief executive Sam Altman.

Musk had accused OpenAI of abandoning its non-profit mission after shifting towards a commercial model, but a jury dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that he had waited too long to bring the claims.


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Moniepoint Boosts UK Payments Security

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African financial services platform Moniepoint has partnered with open banking software-as-a-service provider tell.money to deploy a transaction security system in the UK market.

The companies said the partnership will allow Moniepoint to implement Confirmation of Payee, an account name-checking service designed to verify recipient details before payments are processed.

The integration will be rolled out through Monieworld, Moniepoint’s UK remittance subsidiary, as part of the company’s broader European expansion strategy.

Tell.money will provide the underlying verification technology, which the companies said is intended to reduce misdirected payments and help protect users against cross-border fraud.

Ravi Jakhodia, CEO of Monieworld, said: “Our goal with Monieworld is to build financial services for Africans in the diaspora.”

He added that tell.money was selected because it manages compliance and accreditation requirements, allowing the fintech company to focus on customer service.

Moniepoint is entering a competitive UK-to-Africa remittance market that includes established providers such as Wise, WorldRemit and Remitly, as well as African fintech firms including Flutterwave’s Send App.

According to data from the World Bank’s KNOMAD programme, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries are estimated at about $620 billion annually, with digital -first platforms capturing increasing market share through open banking integrations and automated compliance systems.

The rollout reflects a broader trend of African fintech firms expanding into developed markets by adopting local regulatory and open banking standards.

Industry analysts expect diaspora-focused platforms to evolve beyond money transfers into services such as multi-currency banking, credit and investment products.


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