Kenya floats 297 mln USD T-bond amid investor apathy to long-term papers

Kenya has put on sale a 297 million U.S. dollars Treasury bond for budgetary support amid decline in uptake of the long-term securities.

The two-year bond will be sold for the next ten days by the Central Bank and later be listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange.

"The Central Bank, acting in its capacity as a fiscal agent for the Republic of Kenya, is offering the investing public an opportunity to invest in a two-year fixed coupon Treasury bond, whose purpose is budgetary support," said the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) in a prospectus Friday.

Interest rate of the bond will be market driven, and subject to withholding tax of 15 percent.

However, the two-year bond follows another of a similar amount that was sold last month, but whose performance was below target, an indication of investors' apathy.

Similarly, in this week's auction, the 364 day Treasury bill was undersubscribed, with investors only offering 44 million dollars out of the 59 million dollars sought.

On the contrary, the 91-day and 182-day Treasury bills attracted bids worth 56 million dollars and 68 million dollars out of the 39 million and 59 million dollars the Central Bank sought to raise. Endit