Central America

Bond syndicate bankers covering Latin America were not ruling out a return of new issuance in the next two weeks as the market tone improved on Tuesday after a bleak Monday. But with fears around negative fund flows growing, it may be hard to persuade investors to put cash to work even if valuations look attractive.

On what some EM investors described as the worst day for markets since 2008, Latin American bond buyers were left staring at a sea of red as the region’s fixed income markets were stunned into dysfunction by the sharpest fall in oil prices since 1991.

Mexican hotel operator Grupo Posadas became the first Latin American issuer to suffer a ratings action as a direct result of the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak, with both tourism industry and capital markets conditions worsening while a bond maturity looms.

Mexican non-bank lender AlphaCredit has launched a consent solicitation, as it seeks to make amendments to the indenture governing its 2022 notes.

Mexico’s state-owned electric company Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) turned to Taiwan’s bond market this week to sell a dollar bond — its latest foray into the Formosa bond market.

Mexico state-owned utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) returned to the Formosa market for the fourth time on Wednesday, clinching its largest trade yet in Taiwan.

Mexican polyethylene producer Braskem Idesa’s 2029s were the worst performing bonds in emerging markets on Wednesday after the country's president Andrés Manuel López Obrador said he was analysing whether he could break a contract under which Pemex supplies the company with ethane.

The Mexican finance ministry will visit fixed income investors in Europe next week to present the framework under which it hopes to issue bonds designed to finance expenditure in line with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Mexico’s second largest lender Banco Mercantil del Norte (Banorte) returned to the Swiss franc market for the fourth time in under two years on Monday.

Mexican conglomerate Fomento Económico Mexicano (Femsa) on Friday tapped its 2050s, first issued nearly a month ago, to demonstrate how a softening of global risk appetite since then, combined with a strong technical picture in EM, is making markets attractive to both buyers and issuers.

Mexican leasing company Operadora de Servicios Mega (Grupo Mega) became the latest Latin American high yield company to gain impressive pricing traction on Thursday, as it offered strong evidence that the region’s bond buyers are nonplussed by the coronavirus epidemic.

Mexican state oil company Pemex will increase the size of its most recently issued bonds by more than initially planned after a debt exchange was comfortably oversubscribed.