From Bloomberg

Gabon issued $1.5 billion of dollar bonds as part of an exchange and buyback of existing debt, adding to record issuance by African nations from Nigeria to Rwanda this year.

The securities due 2024 were priced to yield 6.375 percent, Bloomberg data show. The central African oil producer, which is selling notes abroad for the first time since 2007, raised $890 million of new cash in the offering, according to a person familiar with the transaction who asked not to be identified because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly.

Dollar-bond sales from African governments and companies rose to a record $9.68 billion this year from $6.04 billion in 2012, Megan McDonald, Standard Bank Group Ltd.’s head of debt primary markets, said Oct. 31. Gabon, which depends on oil for 45 percent of its gross domestic product, has been buoyed by rising public investment, and economic growth is expected to quicken to 6.8 percent in 2014, according to the International Monetary Fund.

“They have the potential to attract direct investment into other natural resources,” Richard Segal, the London-based head of international credit strategy at Jefferies Group Inc., said by phone today. “Gabon is a good story.”

Written by Boris Korby, Lyubov Pronina and Chris Kay/Read more at Bloomberg