Dangote Cement and Rand Merchant Bank Quote N85bn Commercial Papers

Dangote Cement has announced that it has listed two commercial papers under its N300bn issuance programme on the FMDQ Exchange.

The firm wants to raise about N3.42bn and N56.59bn from Series 10 and 11, respectively.

Conversely, Rand Merchant Bank approved the quotation of N25bn Series 7 commercial papers under its N80bn issuance programme. This was according to the corporate notice filed by the exchange.

Dangote Cement raised funds via issuances under its N300bn commercial papers programme in 2023. The firm, one of Africa’s largest cement producers, issued series 8 and 9 of the CPs on July 17, 2023, with N32.95bn and N50.33bn, respectively, as reported by the PUNCH.

Commercial papers are short-term debt instruments corporations issue. It is widely used to finance short-term liabilities such as payroll, inventories, and accounts payable.

Following the analysis of the Afrinvest Full Year Review and 2024 outlook, there was an increase in commercial paper issuance in 2023, which was said to be driven by high finance costs via bonds and banks.

The asset management firm said that the value of new issuance of Commercial Papers increased to N900bn from N670bn in 2022. From the report, it jumped to 140 from 94 in the preceding year. However, the average issue yield at year-end remained at 16.4%.

From the reports, the month with the highest value of new listing was March, with N354.18bn worth of CPs listed, followed by August, with N239bn. October, with N36.51bn, and June, with N82.13bn worth of newly listed CPs, were the months with the lowest values recorded.

The FMDQ pushing forward a reason for the increase in CP issuance said, “To guarantee sustained business operations in the current challenging economic environment, corporate institutions have continued to explore alternative financing options by tapping the debt capital market to plug capital shortfalls.”