Central America

After nearly two months of persuasion, Mexican petrochemicals company Grupo Idesa received the approval of its bondholders to push out some $300m of international bonds by six years and give major relief to its liquidity situation.

A supranational and a Nordic bank paid rare visits to the Swiss franc market this week. The North American Development Bank (NADB) printed its first deal in two years — its second green bond — while Nordea returned after a five year absence.

Central American sovereign Belize, which last restructured its international debt in 2017, is likely to seek to delay a $13m coupon payment due in August on its only external bond, believes Moody’s.

The top tier of emerging market companies and sovereigns are funding themselves at near pre-coronavirus levels, but there is stark inequality in the market. The vast majority of EM corporates will have to sit out a while longer as funding costs remain prohibitively high for triple- and double-B rated issuers, writes Oliver West.

Telecoms giant América Móvil on Monday became the first private sector non-financial company from Latin America to issue a bond since the coronavirus pandemic battered emerging market bond markets in March. But the company’s unique appeal to non-EM buyers means few conclusions can be drawn about appetite for genuine Lat Am companies.

Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF), the South American development bank, could follow fellow Lat Am multilateral Cabei into bond markets after mandating for an SEC-registered US dollar deal.

Central American development bank Cabei announced its return to US bond markets in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis with its largest ever bond deal, as a strong bid from Asian buyers helped the lender to raise $750m inside regional comps.

Central American development bank Cabei is set to price its first 144A bond in nearly eight years on Wednesday after setting initial price thoughts.

After releasing first quarter results that one credit analyst said showed “limited to no impact” from the coronavirus pandemic, Mexican payroll lender Crédito Real said on Monday that it had established a $1.5bn MTN programme that would give it “access to a wide array of debt securities in various international markets, currencies and maturities”.

Mexico proved its capital market prowess with a highly oversubscribed $6bn bond this week, despite facing a wave of downgrades, concerns about the contingent liability represented by Pemex, and investor fears that the government is reacting too slowly to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mexico’s deputy finance minister told GlobalCapital that proceeds from Wednesday’s $6bn blow-out bond would not be used to help state oil giant Pemex, despite several investors believing the government needed to issue more to prop up the debt-laden company with oil price having crashed in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mexico will continue to monitor international markets even after printing a $6bn triple-tranche deal on Wednesday, and this might include a buy-back of green bonds that were issued to finance the construction of a new airport that ended up being cancelled by the current administration.