Brazil

Oi, the Brazilian telecom company, re-entered international debt markets this week to raise almost $1bn of short-dated paper.

Continued strong inflows into emerging markets debt funds are encouraging riskier Latin American companies to turn to debt markets for funding — even as political risks weigh heavily on the outlook for certain credits. While some buyers think they are picking up rare bargains, others are concerned that they’re becoming overexposed to the region.

LatAm bond buyers said that MC Brazil Downstream Trading’s debut bond issue on Tuesday had offered a rare chance to pick up yield in large size, as the company’s $1.8bn 10 year was spotted a point and a half higher in the grey market after pricing.

After Brazilian pulp and paper producer Suzano became the first Latin American company to issue a second sustainability-linked bond, its treasury director told GlobalCapital he expects investors to differentiate more and more between SLB issuers based on the issuer’s ESG credentials.

MC Brazil Downstream, a vehicle through which UAE sovereign investment fund Mubadala is acquiring a major refinery from Brazil oil giant Petrobras, is planning to sell $1.8bn of 10 year senior secured notes, according to rating agency reports.

Brazilian meatpacking company Minerva returned to debt markets on Tuesday with a $400m tap of a 10 year bond first issued amid turbulent markets in March. The tap was more easily digested, coming at a calmer moment.

Brazilian bank BTG Pactual added $250m to its January 2025 notes on Thursday, targeting retail investors as it sought to raise shorter dated funding than on its last bond market outing at the start of the year.

Brazilian financial name BTG Pactual is set to price a tap of its 4.5% senior unsecured January 2025s on Thursday, with bankers expecting the bank’s strong recent performance to outweigh a market starting to show signs of new issue fatigue after a busy June.

Brazil sold $2.25bn of dollar bonds across two tranches on Tuesday, taking advantage of a strong primary market window that is leaving some bond buyers underwhelmed with pricing.

Suzano, the Brazilian pulp and paper producer that last year became the second company in the world to sell a sustainability-linked bond (SLB), returned to capital markets on Monday with a $1bn long 10 year deal that has a coupon linked to different key performance indicators from its first deal.

Brazilian financial services firm XP opted for a five year maturity on its debut bond issue on Thursday, attracting $1.7bn of orders on the way to a $750m trade.

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.