Latin America

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.

Ecuador will make a $325m bond maturity payment on Tuesday as it looks to unlock $2bn of further funding that the finance minister will be “immediately” accessible. But the sovereign will delay $245m in coupon payments later this week, and the minister did not confirm that these payments would be made when the new loans arrive.

Martín Guzmán, Argentina’s finance minister, said on Friday afternoon that the country was “ready to intensify interaction” with international bondholders ahead of a debt restructuring. But with authorities set to announce further spending to protect its people from the economic impact of Covid-19, the IMF echoed the government’s view that a fiscal surplus was unfeasible in the short term.