Investors are preparing to sue Ethiopia over its $1bn bond default after the country’s official creditors opposed a deal to restructure the debt.
A committee of private-sector holders of the bonds issued by Africa’s second most populous nation said on Monday that bilateral lenders led by China and France had been “completely unreasonable” and were forcing them to go to court three years after the country defaulted.
Ethiopia’s finance ministry announced a deal last month to convert its only international bond into a new bond with payouts linked to its export performance, after already making deals to restructure more than $8bn in official loans in which creditors offered $3.5bn of debt relief.