The Kenya government just announced a $600 million 2 year syndicated loan that will have  Citi, Standard Bank and Standard Chartered Bank as bookrunners and lead arrangers.

But as there’s concern of the ballooning government debt levels, is it time to turn to other sources of funding? Some have suggested the government sell off shares in companies it has such as Safaricom.

An example comes from Japan where their government is about to have what’s expected to be the largest IPO of 2015. According to this WSJ article;

• In addition to running 24,000 post office branches, parent company Japan Post Holdings operates Japan Post Insurance, the country’s largest insurer–and Japan Post Bank–one of the world’s biggest banks by deposits, with $1.67 trillion.
• The Japanese government is raising nearly $12 billion from the sale of 11% of three entities – its postal, banking and insurance units.
• Most of the money raised from the sales will be used to help finance recovery efforts after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
• 80% of the shares in Japan Post Holdings will go to domestic investors, while the remaining 20% are earmarked for international investors.