Latin America

A new dollar benchmark could be on the cards for multilateral lender Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei), the bank’s CFO told GlobalCapital, as the issuer looks to increase its appeal to traditional SSA investors by gaining double-A ratings.

Mexico returned to its habitual role of opening the Latin American bond markets for the year on Wednesday with a $2.6bn trade including a tap of its 2048s to make the most of an exceptionally flat curve.

Emerging market bond fund managers say they are markedly more optimistic than 12 months ago when the "whole world was negative" after the start of Donald Trump’s US presidential term. And with plenty of sovereign trades rumoured for January, there is an abundance of investment opportunities.

After a record 2017, Latin America bond markets had a quiet start to 2018 on Tuesday but syndicate bankers covering the region said that they had a hefty pipeline and would start bringing deals as soon as possible.

For CEEMEA bonds, 2017 was a record breaking year and one which pushed the boundaries of product, tenor, and issuer. The $200bn of bonds raised in CEEMEA, and the $140bn raised in Latin America are the highest annual volumes on record. Investors’ seemingly insatiable appetite for EM debt fuelled massive inflows into the asset class and kept the many idiosyncratic risk events – from Qatar’s regional isolation to deteriorating relations between Turkey and the US– contained. Picking out the deals of the year for 2017 was not easy for GlobalCapital’s editorial team, but after much deliberation the below were chosen.

Luis Caputo, Argentina’s finance minister, said that the sovereign will raise $30bn of new debt across domestic and external markets in 2018, as the government intends to continue reducing its financing from the central bank.

Brazilian low cost airline Gol is set to buy back more bonds after investors owning $21.191m of its existing 9.25% 2020s agreed to sell their notes as part of a tender offer launched on December 14.

A new dollar benchmark could be on the cards for multilateral lender Central American Bank for Economic Integration (Cabei), the bank’s CFO told GlobalCapital on Wednesday, as the issuer looks to increase its appeal to traditional SSA investors by gaining double-A ratings.

Top emerging market bond investors are warning that making strong returns will be much more difficult in 2018, as elections and interest rate risk introduce more volatility into the markets.

One of Argentina’s poorest provinces is considering returning to international bond markets in January, according to buy-side sources in Buenos Aires.

Former president Sebastián Piñera won Chile’s elections on Sunday to book himself a second stint in charge of the Latin American country with the best credit rating. But though Chilean bonds rallied marginally on the news, analysts say the incoming leader faces a struggle to make significant policy changes.

Latin American trade finance lender Bladex has promoted from within after the departure of its chief financial officer.