Lebanon Mandates Blom Bank, Citibank To Lead Manage Eurobond Issue

Wednesday, Jul 20, 2011

BEIRUT (Zawya Dow Jones)--The Lebanese finance ministry has mandated Blom Bank--the country's largest lender by assets--and Citibank to lead manage a Eurobond issue worth $950 million.

The new issue aims to refinance due bonds, and the parties are negotiating the details, a person familiar with the situation told Zawya Dow Jones Wednesday.

Lebanon, with a public debt burden of nearly $52 billion and a debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio of about 135%, saw its budget deficit widen by 530 billion Lebanese pounds ($349.8 million) to LBP1.833 trillion in the first five months of 2011 compared with a year earlier.

The deficit rise was mainly driven by growing transfers to the national electricity company and by an increase in the value of settlements of installments of the country's foreign debt.

By Shikrallah Nakhoul, Zawya Dow Jones, +961 1 985757, shikrallah@zawya.com

Copyright (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Co.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

20-07-11 1044GMT