LatAm Bonds

Latin American corporates from across the rating spectrum are taking a range of measures to protect their liquidity in the face of the Covid-19 slowdown, but analysts suggest several defaults are inevitable as the region is hit on several fronts.

Mexico petrochemicals company Grupo Idesa on Monday issued a supplement to the offering memorandum on a distressed bond swap as it attempts to avoid default by persuading bondholders to push out the maturity on a $300m bond due in December.

Emerging markets face at least $2.5tr of financing needs and do not possess the resources to fund themselves, said the IMF on Friday. But with bond markets continuing to improve and multilateral development banks increasing their firepower, prospects for EM funding are at least looking more promising than a week ago.

For years, the best sovereign issuers in the emerging markets would boast that their latest bond deal showed how much the mystical “international financial community” supported the current administration’s macroeconomic management. And EM investors would pretend that buying the stuff was to have the map to Treasure Island.

Panama acted swiftly to capture crucial funds on Thursday, jumping on an improved market to raise $2.5bn of debt and giving a glimmer of hope to emerging market countries as fears were beginning to rise of a devastating funding squeeze for the developing nations just when they most need finance.

Distressed South American sovereign Ecuador faces a tall task to renegotiate its debt payment schedule in time to avoid a hard default, said market participants, after it delayed around $200m of coupons this week, taking advantage of a 30 day grace period.

After its long-awaited debt sustainability analysis disappointed many investors and analysts, Argentina’s desire to solve its debt restructuring quickly may buckle under the pressure of its attempts to mitigate the impact of Covid-19.

Two days after saying it would take advantage of grace periods to delay coupon payments, Ecuador confirmed that it would begin negotiations with commercial and bilateral creditors around what it calls a “consensual reprofiling” of its outstanding liabilities.

Latin America bonds may not be immune to the generalised improvement in tone in credit markets this week, but that secondary markets remains dysfunctional and a return to primary market action could be some way away.

Mauricio Cárdenas, Colombia’s finance minister in 2012-18, has told GlobalCapital that emerging market nations would struggle to raise the financing required to fund measures to treat the Covid-19 pandemic and consequent economic slump. “Difficult years are coming” for EM, warned the former official.

Development lender the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei) raised $170m-equivalent of three year money on Tuesday after heading to the Mexican bond market, where investors see the bank as a haven credit, the bank’s CFO told GlobalCapital.

Mexican petrochemicals company Grupo Idesa is offering bondholders a collateral package and higher coupon to participate in a bond exchange that would allow it to avoid default later this year.