South America

Colombia’s largest lender, Bancolombia, raised $750m of tier two subordinated bonds this week in the first Basel III-compliant transaction from the country.

Brazilian steel producer Gerdau this week became the latest Latin American issuer to take advantage of hugely benign conditions to issue new debt inside where its existing curve was trading.

Luis Caputo, the finance minister of Argentina, said on Wednesday that the South American sovereign would likely return to the euro-denominated bond market in late October or early November.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) on Wednesday published a protocol that limits the scope of legacy credit default swaps referencing Venezuelan debt to obligations not restricted by recent US sanctions on the country.

Chilean power company Colbún will buy back more than 70% of its existing $500m 6% 2020s after wrapping up the early-bird portion of a tender offer.

Brazil sold new 10 year bonds this week as part of a liability management exercise, using a combination of a cash tender and exchange offer to buy back $3bn of short-dated bonds.

Chilean lender Banco de Crédito e Inversiones (BCI) became the latest Latin American issuer to take advantage of strong market conditions as it took the plunge on its first international bond issuance for more than four years.

A decision not to take a rating from Moody’s proved wise for Braskem as the Brazilian company attracted significant interest from investment grade buyers on its way to a $1.75bn dual tranche deal on Wednesday.

Extraordinarily strong appetite for EM corporate paper helped power company Colbún become the latest Latin American borrower to issue through its existing curve on Wednesday.

Brazil followed Mexico’s example in making the most of idyllic issuance conditions on Tuesday, though some investors argued that Brazil’s $3bn deal demonstrated that the market retained some sense of discipline.

Brazil’s Braskem could become the third Latin America chemicals company in two weeks to issue internationally as it meets fixed income investors on Monday and Tuesday.

One rare and one debut issuer from Latin America are meeting bond investors as bankers say that a quieter couple of weeks of activity is no indication of a slow end to the year.