By John Lee. Iraq opened the books yesterday on its first independent bond sale in a decade. "Investor demand was huge," writese Marcus Ashworth at Bloomberg. "The deal was seven times oversubscribed." The $1-billion, dollar-denominated bond, maturing in March 2023, was expected yield 7 percent, but demand enabled that to be cut to 6.75 percent. […]
By John Lee. The escalating conflict in Iraq is making holders of the country's international debt nervous about repayment, according to a report from Reuters. The size of Iraq's dollar debt is relatively small - a $2.7 billion bond launched in 2006 in a restructuring of Saddam Hussein-era commercial debt. It is held by investors […]
By John Lee. UK-based bank Standard Chartered is counting on the assistance of the British government to help it to open branches in Iraq by the end of the year, according to a report from The National. The newspaper says the company plans to open three branches in the next eighteen months, to tap into […]
By John Lee. JPMorgan Chase is the latest international bank after Citigroup and Standard Chartered to expand business in Iraq, reports Bloomberg. The company has just signed a one-year agreement to help the Trade Bank of Iraq (TBI) finance imports of goods and services, John Gibbons, managing director and EMEA regional executive, told the news […]
By John Lee. British bank Standard Chartered is to apply to Iraqi regulators for permission to open three business branches in Baghdad, Basra and Erbil. Chief executive of wholesale banking, Mike Rees (pictured), told The Telegraph: "Associated with the name British is trust ... It is a very important brand which I think is underestimated. But […]
Last week we reported that Ian Hannam, a top advisor at JPMorgan Chase, has stepped down to appeal a £450,000 ($720,000) fine from the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) for disclosing inside information about a potential offer for Heritage Oil, as well as news of an oil find. Reuters' sources claim that the email recipient […]
Reuters reports that the chief executive of private equity group MerchantBridge and two JPMorgan executives were among seven people killed when a small plane crashed in northern Iraq. The plane went down shortly after takeoff on Friday from Sulaimaniya airport in Kurdistan. MerchantBridge CEO Basil al-Rahim and Abdallah Lahoud, a partner in the company, died […]
