Ecobank Nigeria Boosts Confidence with 50% Early Eurobond Repayment
Ecobank Nigeria Limited confirms the success of its ongoing tender and exit consent solicitation in respect to its U.S.$300 million 7.125% Senior Notes due 2026.
On July 8, 2025, the bank demonstrated strong liquidity and financial resilience by repaying 50% of its Eurobond ahead of the scheduled maturity in February 2026. As of July 11, 2025, the bond traded near par at $99.00, reflecting strong investor confidence in the bank’s ability to repay at maturity.
The early repayment was necessitated by improved liquidity position, backed by collections from loan repayments and early redemption of its promissory notes from its parent.
The bank has firm liquidity plans in place to ensure the remaining 50% of the Eurobond is repaid in full at maturity. Additionally, the bank used the opportunity to require bondholders’ consent to remove the capital adequacy ratio from its Eurobond covenant.
In 2024, the bank’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR) declined to 7.65%, slightly below the 10% regulatory requirement for a national bank. This drop was driven by the depreciation of the Naira, which impacted its loan portfolio with significant foreign currency exposure. However, the bank has come up with measures aimed at restoring the CAR to its regulatory limit.
Notably, Ecobank Nigeria is undergoing a transformation aimed at boosting revenue, fast-tracking impairment provisions to support loan write-offs, strengthening asset quality, and aggressively cutting operating expenses through improved efficiency.
Discussions with key bank stakeholders revealed that the transformation program is starting to deliver positive results.
Preliminary H1 2025 results show a 30% revenue growth, rising to ₦113.7bn from ₦87.6bn in H1 2024. Gross impairment charges surged by over 200% in H1 2025, reaching ₦32.8 billion compared to ₦10.7 billion in H1 2024, due to improved revenue.
Unaudited profit before tax for H1 2025 rose by 90% to ₦13.5bn, up from ₦7.1bn in H1 2024, and the liquidity ratio has remained sufficiently above the required 30%. A key pillar of the transformation program, the asset quality war room, has driven a more aggressive push in loan collections and recoveries.
Also, the improvement in oil production, driven largely by the current administration’s initiatives, has significantly strengthened the bank’s recovery prospects, particularly given its large exposure to oil and gas loans, and has improved obligors’ ability to meet restructuring terms.
Consequently, in 2025, the bank recovered $6 million (over ₦9 billion) from a long-standing delinquent obligor. Additionally, stage 2 loans totaling over ₦170 billion have been successfully reclassified to stage 1, reflecting consistent performance over the past 12 months.
The parent company (Ecobank Transnational Incorporated—ETI- remains committed to supporting the bank. The parent had injected over $10 million in 2024 to enable the bank to meet the CBN’s requirement of ₦200 billion for a national bank.
However, additional capital injections, alongside measures like loan portfolio reduction, accelerated impairment provisioning, and improved profitability, are underway to restore the bank’s capital adequacy ratio (CAR) to regulatory levels.
The Bank remains committed to complying with the CBN’s forbearance directive and will not issue dividends or management bonuses, ensuring that retained earnings are preserved to strengthen its capital base.
An analyst noted that while the Bank faces challenges in meeting its Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR), “he remains confident that the ongoing transformation will steer the Bank out of the woods. He added that if investors lacked confidence in the bank’s ability, the bond would be trading at a discount — not near par” Foreign Investors Rotate Out of Nigerian Eurobond as Sentiment Shifts
