LatAm Bonds

Covid-19 has made combining market-friendly economic policy with retaining popular support even trickier than usual for Latin America's politicians. In turn, it has become harder for bondholders to read the political tea leaves when weighing up where their money is best parked. For instance, investors who once loved Jair Bolsonaro's Brazil are now high-tailing it to other markets, including El Salvador, where another populist has just won power. In a busy year for LatAm elections, and with the pandemic still raging, allocating capital in the region's bond markets will be trickier than usual.

InRetail Peru Corp is looking to issue a $750m bond through its consumer division in an attempt to offer buyers greater liquidity and more diversified credit exposure than its previous bond issues, which have never exceeded $400m.

Colombia has increased its external funding programme for the year to over $10bn after forecasting a larger 2021 fiscal deficit than it recorded in 2020, exacerbating concerns about the government’s ability to maintain its investment grade credit rating.

Bond bankers covering Latin America say that previously rare 20 year deals could become a popular maturity for the region’s sovereigns after Peru included a 2041 note in a $4bn triple-tranche dollar issue this week. The sovereign followed up the dollar deal with €825m in euros on Thursday, thus wrapping its external funding needs for the year, according to a finance ministry official.

Modest order books and higher new issue concessions for dollar and euro issues this week showed that emerging markets borrowers are operating in a different market to a month ago, before inflation concerns had brought non-stop volatility to US Treasury markets.

Fitch Ratings said on Wednesday that it would continue to provide international ratings and research on Mexican government-owned oil giant Pemex even after the issuer said it was dispensing with the agency’s services. Previously, Mexican president Andrés Manual López Obrador had publicly criticised Fitch’s negative rating actions on Pemex, which accounts for nearly 10% of investor holdings of EM corporate bonds.

Beef exporter Minerva navigated another volatile day for Brazilian assets to raise $1bn of new 10-year non-call five notes on Wednesday, offering a slight pick-up to rival Marfrig that bankers saw as justified given Marfrig’s larger size and US operations.

International bonds issued by El Salvador and Costa Rica are proving to be a sweet spot for EM investors, with the notes extending their rally this week as both countries look closer than ever to signing IMF programmes. But there are risks to the positive credit narratives driving the performance of both sovereigns, analysts warned.

Argentina’s northernmost province, Jujuy, said on Monday evening that it had reached an agreement with more than half the holders of its $210m green bond regarding a restructuring proposal that would grant it significant short-term debt relief.

South America’s largest beef exporter, Minerva, will look to price a new 10 year non-call five bond on Wednesday as part of a liability management exercise that will be debt-neutral or debt-negative.

Brazilian mining giant Vale said on Friday that it plans to prepay its €750m January 2023s as record iron ore prices allowed it to build cash levels greater than its gross debt.

El Salvador’s bonds retained recent gains on Thursday as EM’s riskiest credits proved resilient to the week’s US Treasury sell-off, with bondholders hoping that Sunday’s mid-term elections will give president Nayib Bukele the political capital he requires to implement an IMF programme.