Nigeria to drop out of Barclays bond index – FT

• First JPMorgan, now Barclays.

Nigeria has lost its place in Barclays’ flagship Emerging Markets Local Currency Government Index, the bank said, noting that “the investment conditions in Nigeria have become more challenging for foreign investors in the past 18 months.”

The country will drop out in February next year, a step that will likely remove some structural support for the country’s debt. But the securities will remain eligible for the bank’s broader Emerging Markets Local Currency Government Universal Index, writes Katie Martin.

The bank said that the move was partly down to the actions of the central bank, which has included bonds, along with wooden doors and margarine, on a long list of items that locals are unable to buy using foreign currency bought on the open market.

The bank says:

The Central Bank of Nigeria has introduced a number of measures that have complicated managing Nigerian bond government index exposure, specifically restricting access to the naira.

It adds that this and other changes to its indices were made

after carefully evaluating the evolving fixed income landscape and incorporating stakeholder feedback from a diverse set of global investors who use Barclays’ indices as portfolio benchmarks and measures of broad fixed income market returns.

In September, Nigerian bonds took a knock after JPMorgan removed the country from its indices.

Barclays’ move followed an annual review in October. Among other changes from that review is the inclusion of Russia in an inflation-linked index while Argentina has been removed, as “the shrinking market size, coupled with questions around the accuracy of [inflation] statistics, has diminished confidence in this market, which has affected liquidity and pricing.”

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