The government is expected to hire advisers to issue dollar-denominated bonds in the international market by this or early next week, the Finance Ministry’s spokesperson said on Wednesday.
According to The News, the Finance Ministry has received bids from the interested financial institutions and is now evaluating the technical and financial bids to structure the bonds.
The government intends to raise around $1 billion through the issuance of Eurobonds possibly in December or January and may go up depending on the response from the international market.
Six global bidders have been qualified for technical offers, including JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Dubai Islamic Bank, Citi Bank, Credit Suisse and Standard Chartered Bank. However, the list of the successful financial bidders has not been finalised by the finance ministry as yet.
Two consortiums will be hired to put in place structures for bonds, consisting of five financial institutions for Eurobonds and four for Sukuk. The selected consortium will assist the government in structuring bonds, while managing, coordinating and executing all the activities related to the issuance.
It is pertinent to mention that Pakistan had raised $1 billion in five-year Sukuk and $1.5 billion in 10-year Eurobonds in 2017. The profit rate for Sukuk was 5.6pc and for the Eurobond, it was 6.8pc.
