Latin America

Mexican car parts maker Nemak sold $500m of sustainability-linked bonds on Wednesday in its first issue since it was spun off from conglomerate Grupo Alfa. Nemak’s deal was priced 25bp inside a recent SLB from its similarly rated peer Metalsa.

Frigorífico Concepción, the Paraguay beef exporter, is looking to sell new bonds to refinance its senior secured 2025s just six months after it last tapped the notes.

Analysts said that Argentina’s deal to postpone $2bn of debt owed to the Paris Club was a credit positive, though it was not enough to halt another recent fall in the sovereign’s bond prices as the medium-term likelihood of a default remains high.

Argentine dairy company Mastellone Hermanos will push ahead with a distressed debt exchange after holders of an additional $3m of its 2021 bonds agreed to participate in the swap since last week’s early-bird deadline. The extra participation means the minimum take-up threshold for the offer has been reached.

Financial services firm XP, which Moody’s describes as aiming to “disrupt the business model of incumbent banking institutions in Brazil”, is meeting fixed income investors ahead of a potential debut international bond issue 18 months after it priced an IPO on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

Bondholders of Mexican payroll lender AlphaCredit are facing very low recoveries, say credit analysts, after the company failed to pay a $15m coupon payment due on June 19 on its senior secured 2022s.

Mexican car parts maker Nemak is looking to become the latest Latin American company to issue a sustainability-linked bond, having begun investor meetings on Monday. Like other LatAm SLB issuers from the sector, Nemak is including a coupon step-up linked to Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions — though the company has a separate target to reduce its far more significant Scope 3 emissions.

Braskem, the Brazilian petrochemicals company downgraded to junk last year, will use cash to repurchase over $230m of bonds as it reduces its debt ratio to regain investment grade status.

Latin America bond market participants saw signs this week that risk appetite is waning, with recent deals under par in secondary markets. Added to a more hawkish stance from the US Federal Reserve, bankers and investors expect issuance from the region to slow.

Brazilian food company BRF said on Wednesday that it is giving bondholders more time to participate in a tender offer for a portion of its global bonds maturing in 2030.

The government of Suriname on Tuesday accused its bondholders of taking an “unconstructive and confrontational stance” after the creditor committee had on Monday opted to exercise an option that allowed them to cancel the payment relief previously offered to the sovereign.

Mastellone Hermanos, the largest dairy company in Argentina, has fallen short of getting the bondholder support it needs for its proposed distressed exchange offer. The borrower, which is dealing with the fallout from capital controls in its home country, needs the support of another 1.47% of its bondholders to proceed with the offer.