By mobilizing 750 million dollars—approximately 415 billion FCFA—through a private placement, the Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motaze, did not only succeed in attracting titans such as BlackRock and Goldman Sachs. He, above all, deployed a formidable technical shield: a USD/EUR currency swap. This hedging mechanism, activated at the precise moment of the "closing," allowed for the transmutation of an initial rate of 10.125% into an effective coupon of 7.79% in euros. For the State, this surgical maneuver does not merely represent a victory of image; it is a budgetary breath of oxygen that saves tens of billions of FCFA in interest over the next seven years, transforming a potentially stifling debt into a controlled lever for growth.

The success of this fourth outing by Cameroon on the international sovereign market testifies to a resilience that stands in contrast to its current ratings (B- at S&P and B at Fitch). While the country initially targeted 600 million dollars, demand approached one billion dollars, driven by a consortium of leading arrangers including Citi, JP Morgan, and Cygnum Capital. This oversubscription demonstrates that despite the "speculative" label of Cameroonian debt, Anglo-Saxon and European fund managers validate the country's macroeconomic trajectory. By opting for a seven-year maturity with a two-year repayment deferral, Yaoundé secures a precious respite to consolidate its foreign exchange reserves while clearing the payment arrears of the previous budget.

The stake of this fundraising is primarily operational. The 415 billion FCFA collected are already earmarked for the settlement of "outstanding payments," those famous vouchers that sometimes hinder the delivery of major infrastructure projects. By securing the execution of the 2026 budget, the government guarantees the continuity of the SND30 priority projects without creating tensions on the local banking market. The concurrently implemented swap acts here as a life insurance policy: by exchanging its dollar repayment flows for euro flows (a currency with a fixed parity to the FCFA), the country shields itself from the fluctuations of the greenback—a prudent strategy that contrasts with the exchange rate crises suffered by other nations on the continent.

In an African landscape marked by the strong return of Benin and the ambitions of the DR Congo, Cameroon reaffirms its position as a reference signature in Central Africa. While the rate of 7.79% remains higher than the 5.95% obtained during the 2021 outing, it remains competitive in the current context of global monetary tightening. For Louis Paul Motaze, this London operation is proof that financial engineering can mitigate the rigidity of credit ratings.

CK