DMO Opens April Savings Bond Offer

The Debt Management Office (DMO) has opened subscription for the April 2023 Savings bond issuing the 2-year bond at 10.032 per cent and the 3-year bond at 11.032 per cent. This is as it raised N1.011 billion at the March offer.

According to the offer document, the 2-year bond will be due on April 12, 2025 while the 3-year bond will be due on April 12, 2026 with coupon payments slated for July 12, October 12, January 12 and April 12.

The offer which opened on Monday, April 3, 2023, will close this Friday (April 7) while settlement date will be next week Wednesday (April 12). The rates for the April Savings bond are higher than the 9.465 per cent and 10.465 per cent which it raised the 2-year and 3-year bonds at the March offer.

Last month, 443 successful subscriptions for the 2-year bond had been allotted N338.123 million, while 289 subscriptions for the 3-year bond had been allotted N673.069 million. The Savings Bond is a retail bond that allows individuals invest as low as N5,000 for a period of two to three years.

Latest debt figure of the country as released by the DMO showed that the domestic and external total debt stock of the federal government, and the sub-national governments (36) state governments and the Federal Capital Territory stood at N46.25 trillion or $103.11 billion at the end of last year.

A detailed look into the figures showed that Nigeria recorded N2.19 trillion debt increase within the last quarter of 2022 (Q4), a steep departure from the N44.06 trillion that was recorded in third quarter (Q3) of the same year ended. That is a 20 percent growth rate in the quarter under revenue.

In terms of composition, total domestic debt stock was N27.55 trillion ($ 61.42 billion) while total external debt was N18.70 trillion ($ 41.69 billion). The comparative figure for December 31, 2021, is N39.56 trillion or $95.77 billion.