(Bloomberg) -- Ghana sold $3 billion of Eurobonds Tuesday as a dovish turn by some of the world’s leading central banks spurs appetite for high-yield, high-risk holdings.

The West African oil and cocoa producer sold the debt in a three-part deal with average maturities of seven, 12 and 31 years, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified.

The shortest tranche was priced to yield 7.8785 percent, after initial guidance of around 8 percent to 8.5 percent, the person said. The other other tranches were priced at 8.125 percent and 8.95 percent, respectively. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, Standard Bank Group Ltd. and Standard Chartered Plc arranged the deal.

Love of Yield Beats Supply Fears as Africa Plans Bond Deluge

Ghana has previously said it would sell $2 billion of foreign-currency debt to help finance its 2019 budget and seek $1 billion more if demand proved high enough. The cedi strengthened for the first week in four last week as investors bet the sale would boost central bank reserves and help it protect the currency, which has weakened 9.6 percent this year.

S&P Global Ratings rates Ghana B, five steps into junk territory and the same level as Argentina and Egypt. African sovereign dollar bonds have returned 9.5 percent in 2019, the most among emerging-market regions, according to JPMorgan indexes.

--With assistance from Alec D.B. McCabe.

To contact the reporter on this story: Moses Mozart Dzawu in Accra at mdzawu@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alastair Reed at areed12@bloomberg.net, Paul Wallace, Philip Sanders

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