LatAm Bonds

Brazilian retail group Lojas Americanas began calls with investors on Wednesday as it looks to sell a benchmark dollar bond with an intermediate maturity.

The Republic of Panama returned to bond markets for the first time in six months on Tuesday to raise $2.575bn of funding across three tranches — including a tap of its Euroclearable local law 2026s that offered a higher pick-up to the global curve than when the instrument was debuted in April 2019.

Fresnillo plc, the Mexican mining company, will begin meeting fixed income investors on Wednesday as it becomes the latest Latin American company to seek new bonds to fund a repurchase of old ones.

Japan could be Mexico's next debt raising destination on its quest to build a "sustainable yield curve," following last week's bond linked to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, said Gabriel Yorio, the country's deputy finance minister.

A proposed debut bond from a Brazilian oil company that ratings agencies said had “high operating risk” and a “small” and concentrated asset base proved to be one step too far for the rampant EM bond market that is showing signs of nearing its peak.

Latin American business services company Atento began investor calls on Friday ahead of a proposed senior secured benchmark bond as it looks to refinance a $500m 2022 maturity.

Emerging market bond demand appeared near boiling point this week as a slew of borrowers priced new debt through their curves and even high yielding credits were able to stretch to longer maturities. While market participants acknowledged it surely cannot get any better than this and that conditions show little connection to economic reality, they are struggling to see what could sour sentiment in the near term. Mariam Meskin and Oliver West report.

Argentina’s recently restructured international bond curve looks further than ever from the 10% yield target that the finance minister had set. New currency controls aimed at halting the decline in international reserves have had a catastrophic impact on both corporate and sovereign bond markets, and are likely to spell major trouble in the long term, analysts say.

BBVA’s Mexican subsidiary made an opportunistic return to the international markets on Tuesday, raising dollar funding at a record low cost ahead of a bond maturing next March.

Argentine corporate bonds sold off sharply on Wednesday after the central bank sought to dictate how the issuers could refinance their dollar debt as part of an escalation of currency controls.

Brazilian foods company BRF fetched a 10 times oversubscribed order book on its way to a 30-year benchmark on Wednesday as appetite for Latin American risk remains irrepressible.

Latin American development bank Corporación Andina de Fomento (CAF) will continue to monitor its members’ needs before determining how much funding it has left to raise in 2020, but has covered the majority of its financing needs after increasing the size of a dollar benchmark, priced on Wednesday.