Latin America

Peru grabbed the bond market’s attention on Monday with a $4bn triple-tranche issue including a 100 year bond despite the country being on its third president this month. But the country’s public treasury director said it was the all-in yield, not the desire to make headlines, that drove Peru to become the fourth Latin American borrower ever to sell a century bond.

Peru will become the fourth Latin American borrower to issue a century bond on Monday, selling a triple-tranche dollar issue including a 100-year bond despite the fact that the the country is on its third president this month.

International investors have remained sanguine about the chances of a restructuring of Bolivia’s sovereign bonds even after the finance minister said the recently elected government was seeking payment relief on some external debt.

Julio Velarde, the governor of the central bank of Peru (BCRP), insisted that the country had broad access to international financial markets as the sovereign’s bond spreads more than recovered the ground lost during recent political volatility.

Suriname could be running out of time to avoid default via a consent solicitation designed to grant it a debt standstill, even as bondholders praised the sovereign’s approach to discussions.

Bond buyers snapped up three debut issuers from Latin America in the space of two days this week, jumping at rare chances to add variety and — in certain cases — juicier yields to their portfolios.

Chile increased its first social bond on Thursday, returning to the Euroclearable peso market for the first time in 18 months with a deal that bankers said had higher international participation than expected.

Guatemala’s international bonds prices finally reacted this week to its failure to make a November 3 coupon payment amid a legal battle with a US energy company. But the Central American government’s public credit office says a solution is imminent and bondholders appear confident that default will be avoided.

Mexico carried out its largest ever liability management exercise this week, refinancing more than $6.6bn of dollar bonds with new longer dated debt. But deputy finance minister Gabriel Yorio says that the sovereign will remain very active in international bond markets in the short term and is likely to be back in dollars early next year.

Mexican power generator FEL Energy, which sells 70% of its capacity to state-owned electric utility CFE, priced a debut bond deal on Wednesday as investors were unshaken by noise surrounding a different Mexican credit with a long-term agreement with a government-owned entity.

Digital retailer B2W attracted a huge book on its bond market debut on Wednesday, tightening pricing to land just an 0.125% in yield terms wide of its parent company, Brazilian retail giant Lojas Americanas.

Guatemala’s head of public credit said on Wednesday that the Central American sovereign hoped to resolve in the “next two days” a dispute with Florida-based Teco Energy that has caused its fiscal agent in New York to freeze a coupon payment due at the start of this month.