Hogan Lovells cross-border, cross practice team advises the Republic of Ghana in their precedent setting Sovereign Debt Restructurings
New York, 16 October, 2024 – After two years of negotiations with private creditors, multilateral institutions and financial institutions, global law firm Hogan Lovells assisted the Republic of Ghana (“Ghana”) in closing its precedent setting restructuring of its approximately US$13 billion outstanding Eurobond debt. This international restructuring follows the successful conclusion of Ghana’s first-of-its-kind comprehensive domestic debt exchange in October 2023.
The successful completion of this Eurobond debt exchange was a critical component of Ghana’s debt restructuring process under its program with the International Monetary Fund. Since 2022, Ghana faced a challenging economic situation amid an increasingly difficult global economic environment marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economic impact created by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and disruptions to global supply chains. These factors exposed Ghana to a surge in inflation, significant exchange rate depreciation, and increased fiscal stress. To alleviate the debt burden transparently and expediently, the government initiated a program to treat its public debt, both domestic and external, as part of a broader agenda to implement structural and fiscal reforms aimed to kickstart growth and restore fiscal and debt sustainability.
The transaction involved exchanging approximately US$13 billion distributed across 15 series of existing Eurobonds maturing between 2023 and 2061 for either or a combination of two menus consisting in the aggregate of five new series of Eurobonds due between 2026 and 2037.
With both the international restructuring and the domestic debt restructuring now complete, Ghana is positioned to put its entire debt on a sustainable path.
The Hogan Lovells team worked on many unique aspects of the transaction, including balancing voting thresholds for bonds which contained collective action clauses with bonds which did not contain such clauses, negotiations with official creditors as well as private creditors, and crafting a number of novel non-financial provisions in the new bonds.
The Hogan Lovells global deal team was led by partners Evan Koster (Capital Markets, New York) and Bruno Ciuffetelli (IERP, Houston), with assistance from senior associates Juan D. Moreno and Lauren Kimmel (both Capital Markets, New York), and associate Ignacio Beheran (Capital Markets, New York). The Hogan Lovells London team was led by senior counsel Andrew Carey with support from senior associate William Price, associate Niki Miri and trainee solicitor Maya Paniara (all Capital Markets). Additional support was provided by partner and co-head of the firm’s Restructuring and Special Situations (RSS) practice Ronald Silverman (New York), partner Dennis Tracey (Litigation, New York), group manager Alex Sciannaca (Litigation, London), senior associate Jennifer Lee (RSS, Washington, D.C.) and associate Guntash Gill (Litigation, London).
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