Brazil

The end of the long weekend brought back the return of a weaker tone in bond markets on Tuesday as Latin American primary markets were silent despite bankers boasting of a reasonable pipeline.

Brazilian building materials company Votorantim Cimentos is looking to buy back up to $650m of outstanding bonds using funds that its parent company is set to receive from the sale of its stake in pulp and paper company Fibria.

Brazilian building materials company Votorantim Cimentos is looking to buy back up to $650m of outstanding bonds using funds that its parent company is set to receive from the sale of pulp and paper company Fibria, due to go through on January 14.

Colombian company TermoCandelaria Power Limited (TPL) finally injected some intention to the Latin American primary bond market with a roadshow announcement, but bankers continue seeking a candidate to be the first to raise funding.

Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras began the year finalising yet another buy-back of existing bonds, though the response from bondholders fell below the $1.5bn maximum repurchase amount set by the borrower.

Brazilian bank BTG Pactual is asking holders of its perpetual bonds issued in 2014 to agree to a new indenture that allows the lender to change the issuing branch of the notes.

Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras began the year finalising yet another buy-back of existing bonds, though the response from bondholders fell below the $1.5bn maximum repurchase amount set by the borrower.

Brazilian airline Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes is set to continue its deleveraging process as it looks to repurchase the remainder of its bonds due in 2022.

No Latin American borrowers dared to announce bond plans in the short first working week of 2019, but a flurry of pre-Christmas requests for proposals and the prospect of habitual January issuers tapping was enough to make syndicate bankers chirpier.

Latin American bond markets had a predictably quiet start to 2019 as DCM bankers are focussing firmly on next week for any new supply, but early signs suggested that Brazil would continue to be the outperformer.

An appetite for risk is returning to Latin America's equity markets heading into 2019 as worries over the China-US trade war and rates hikes in the latter country ease, according to a Lat Am fund manager survey from Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Research.

Battling a host of problems — local and global — Latin American bond markets suffered a torrid 2018. Many issuers stayed away, high yielders struggled to find financing and investors booked losses. With more volatility expected, political developments in LatAm’s three largest economies could make or break the region’s bond markets in 2019. Oliver West reports.