Platinum Credit (U) Limited, the microfinance lender, has raised Shs30bn ($7.6mn) from the first sale of notes under a Shs70bn medium-term programme after investors bid for 2.5 times the amount it first sought.

Bids totalled Shs49.28bn against a Shs20bn target, a subscription rate of 246.4 per cent, according to a public announcement dated October 2nd and published on the Uganda Securities Exchange’s website on Monday. Platinum exercised in full the Shs10bn green shoe attached to the tranche, lifting the amount it accepted to Shs30bn.

The notes carry fixed coupons of 16.5 per cent on three-year paper, 17.4 per cent on five-year paper and 19 per cent on eight-year paper, paid quarterly. That gives a weighted average of about 17.2 per cent on the amount accepted. At the Bank of Uganda’s auction on September 23rd the government paid 13.74 per cent on a five-year bond, so Platinum is paying about 3.7 percentage points more for paper of similar tenor. Its eight-year coupon is higher than the 16.25 per cent the government pays on its 25-year bond.

Platinum did not say in the announcement what it will do with the money or who bought the notes. The notes were listed on the exchange on October 5th. Dyer & Blair, which acted as arranger, sponsoring broker and placing agent, described participation as strong in a post on Twitter.

The five-year series drew Shs30.09bn of bids, 61 per cent of the total, but Platinum accepted Shs13.86bn of them, or 46 per cent. It took all Shs13.14bn bid for the three-year series and Shs3bn of the Shs6.05bn bid for the eight-year series, the longest and most expensive. Applications up to Shs1.5bn were met in full; larger ones were scaled back at the issuer’s discretion.

The Capital Markets Authority recorded no primary or secondary market activity in corporate bonds in the year to June 2025, and said high government yields had made them less attractive to issuers and investors, The EastAfrican reported. The newspaper said Uganda’s capital markets had seen no new corporate debt issue since Kakira Sugar’s Shs76bn bond in December 2013, and counted only nine corporate bond issuers since 1998.

John Muhumuza Kamara of XENO Investment Management, quoted by the Daily Monitor on September 8th, said weaker borrowers might have to pay close to 17 per cent for short-term money, and asked “who is going to raise money at 17 percent?” Mubbale Mugalya of Sanlam Allianz Investments said paper of six months would be priced at roughly the government’s rate plus a margin. Both were discussing commercial paper rather than notes.

For scale, the central bank accepted Shs1.2tn at its bond auction on September 23rd, forty times Platinum’s raise, and a one-year Treasury bill yielded 11.5 per cent at the September 30th bill auction.

Platinum is part of the Platcorp Group and says it serves more than 100,000 clients, most of them small businesses and low-income households. It has also raised money abroad. Symbiotics, a Swiss asset manager, provided $4mn over 24 months, disbursed in December 2025, according to reports in March.

The announcement calls the sale Tranche 1 of the programme and does not say when the next will follow.

($1 = Shs3,966.90, Bank of Uganda mid-rate on October 2nd)