Eurobond: Tracing the money trail from offshore bank accounts

Let’s now turn to the US$ 2 billion Eurobond issue in June 2014, since no one seems overly concerned with the fate of the November 2014 US$ 815.4 million issue; everyone seems happy all went well on this November fund raising. Here we are then, we’ve raised US$ 2 billion. What happened next? Our reading of the sequence of events is:

1. US$ 1.999 billion (i.e. US$ 2 billion minus fees and expenses payable to bankers, lawyers, regulators etc.) was transferred to an account opened by the Central Bank of Kenya on behalf of the National Treasury at JP Morgan Chase on June 30 2014 with the sole purpose of receiving the Eurobond proceeds. Questions which have arisen is why the account was opened at all, whether it was opened legally and why there was a delay in designating signatories. On the first: this is because it is customary to open Receiving Bank accounts for any Eurobond issues. This is the practice and I am afraid no one is going to change this practice to accommodate any Kenya-specific special need.