LatAm Bonds

February is set to arrive with zero cross-border issuance from Brazil after Petrobras disappointed the market on Tuesday night by not including write-downs on assets in its delayed third quarter 2014 results.

There are finally signs of a corporate bond pipeline in Latin America with one investment-grade, one crossover and one high yield borrower set to test appetite next week after a bare January.

Peruvian consumer goods company Alicorp is seeking to persuade more bondholders of its 3.875% 2023 to sell their paper after investors owning just over half of the $150m maximum purchase amount set by the company agreed to tender their bonds before last Monday’s early bird deadline.

Petrobras’ debt curve sold off on Wednesday after the company disappointed investors by not including write-downs from a corruption investigation into its contracting practices in its delayed Q3 2014 results released on Tuesday night.

Peruvian conglomerate Intercorp will begin a roadshow with international bond investors on Thursday as the company looks to raise new debt to fund the buyback of its existing 2019s.

Peruvian consumer goods company Alicorp is looking to persuade more bondholders of its 3.875% 2023 to sell their paper after investors owning just over half of the $150m maximum purchase amount set by the company agreed to tender their bonds before Monday’s early bird deadline.

President Nicolás Maduro’s delayed annual address to the Venezuelan National Assembly last week brought potentially positive news for bondholders but plans for an economic adjustment still lack detail and could be too little, too late, analysts have warned.

Colombia priced a long-dated dollar trade on Wednesday, a $1.5bn 30 year that followed the Dominican Republic's 10s and 30s dual trancher on Tuesday. A focus on price over size enabled Colombia to achieve its lowest ever coupon for a 30 year and although some investors felt pricing was tight, demand was over $5bn.

State-owned Chilean lender Banco del Estado de Chile (BancoEstado) raised ¥31bn ($264m) on Friday in the first Japanese yen-denominated issue from a Latin American borrower in 2015.

Debt capital market bankers covering Latin America say it is still unclear just how welcoming new issue conditions are for most borrowers from the region even though the Mexican sovereign and Pemex clinched widely praised deals last week.

Bond investors said a sell-off in Colombian oil company Pacific Rubiales Energy was overdone, saying fears that the borrower was going to breach its covenants on the back of low oil prices were misguided.

Mexico’s first dollar deal of 2015 on Monday may have been a big success for the borrower but it has only partially re-opened the LatAm bond markets, say debt bankers.