Ghana sold sub-Saharan Africa’s longest-ever Eurobond as part of a $3 billion deal that was almost five times oversubscribed.

West Africa’s second-biggest economy issued a $750 million tranche, which amortizes and has an average life of 40 years, at 8.875%, making it the highest-yielding sovereign dollar bond so far this year. Pricing was reduced from the initial talk of 9.4%

The government also sold $1.25 billion of debt with an average maturity of six years and a yield of 6.375%. A third segment of $1 billion has an average life of 14 years, yielding 8%.

Bids topped $14 billion, a person familiar with the transaction said.

Ghana said in September 2018 that it planned a century bond in dollars. While that didn’t happen, it did issue a $1 billion, 2051 instrument at 8.95% six months later. The yield on that dropped 12 basis points on Tuesday to 8.66%.

The latest offering comes at a time when the premium investors demand to hold riskier assets is rising, in large part due to the coronavirus outbreak. Spreads on emerging-market government dollar bonds have widened to 307 basis points over U.S. Treasuries, from 291 basis points at the start of the year, according to a JPMorgan Chase & Co. index.

Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Standard Bank Group Ltd. and Standard Chartered Plc arranged Tuesday’s sale.

Source: Bloomberg