LatAm Bonds

Brazilian utility Cemig ended a three week hiatus in offshore Latin American bond issuance this week and was swiftly followed by the Dominican Republic as the two high yield borrowers raised a combined $1.8bn.

Chilean utility AES Gener will buy back $200m of old bonds after investors pledged to sell more than the maximum purchase amount that the company had set before the early bird deadline of July 11.

Dutch lender ING has hired a director to focus on Latin American and high yield debt capital markets origination as part of its recently launched global capital markets Americas group.

Brazilian utility Cemig will test appetite for high yield issuance in Latin America on Thursday after it approached investors about the possibility of tapping of its existing dollar bond.

Gas Natural de Lima y Callao, the largest gas distribution company in Peru, has received its second rating upgrade of the year after Moody’s pushed the borrower up by one notch to Baa2.

Faro Energy, which develops solar energy projects in Brazil and Colombia, has sold a green bond to finance distributed solar power projects, said the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI).

Though market tone has shown a marked improvement over the last week, Lat Am bond buyers say that they are not expecting to see much new supply until September — and nor do they want any.

Colombian utility Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) saw its bond prices slide at the end of last week after the environmental licencing authority issued a resolution appearing to suspend certain activities at the landmark Ituango hydroelectric project.

Defaulting Caribbean sovereign Barbados could end up forcing a 50% principal haircut on bondholders in its restructuring, said Exotix this week, as investors worried that an overly aggressive approach from the island nation would see it lose market access for the foreseeable future.

When it finally came, the result of the election that markets had feared all year in Mexico was comprehensive. But the reaction was underwhelming.

Defaulting Caribbean sovereign Barbados could end up forcing a 50% principal haircut on bondholders in its restructuring, said Exotix on Wednesday, as investors worried that an overly aggressive approach from the island nation would see it lose market access for the foreseeable future.

Juan Carlos Varela, the president of Panamá, named Eyda Varela de Chinchilla as finance minister on Tuesday after Dulcidio de la Guardia resigned despite apparently impressive results.