African Export-Import Bank Hires JPMorgan, HSBC for London IPO

(Bloomberg) -- The African Export-Import Bank said it’s considering an initial public offering to help finance rapidly increasing trade flows on the continent.

The Cairo-based lender hired JPMorgan Securities Plc and HSBC Bank Plc as joint global coordinators and bookrunners, and Exotix Partners LLP as co-lead manager, according to a statement. The bank said the offering of global depositary receipts would trade on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.

While Afreximbank didn’t indicate a post-IPO valuation, the bank reported total equity of $2.7 billion in an investor update last month. It posted net income of $137.6 million in the first half of 2019, compared with $76 million a year earlier.

Afreximbank currently operates in 51 of Africa’s 55 countries. Since being established in 1993, it’s provided about $69 billion of trade-financing support, according to the statement. Its services include financing, underwriting and share placements aimed at supporting intra- and extra-African trade and trade development projects.

African nations signed a free-trade agreement earlier this year to create a market of 1.2 billion people with a combined gross domestic product of $2.5 trillion. Twenty-seven countries, including South Africa, have ratified the agreement, which should be fully implemented by 2030.

Trade between African countries accounts for about 15% of the global total, compared with 20% in Latin America and 58% in Asia, according to the bank. That share could increase by 52% by 2022 and more than double within the first decade after the continental trade deal, it said in a report last year.

To contact the reporters on this story: Carla Canivete in London at ccanivete@bloomberg.net;Prinesha Naidoo in Johannesburg at pnaidoo7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sunil Kesur at skesur@bloomberg.net, ;Rene Vollgraaff at rvollgraaff@bloomberg.net, Paul Richardson, Stefania Bianchi

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