Colombia

And breathe.

Rates stability, oil price rally provide fertile ground for tap of 2049s

Analyst says green debut draws bid-to-cover ratio rarely seen in domestic auctions

Majority of holders of 2026s agree to push out maturity date

Moody’s says Colombian oil company faces higher leverage and refinancing risk due to its more aggressive financial policy

Ecopetrol, Colombia's largest company, will use the loan to acquire the outstanding shares of electricity company Interconexion Electrica

Mining company Gran Colombia Gold Corp sold a senior unsecured $300m five year note on Wednesday, with bankers saying that the company had offered a pricing pick-up that could be attributed to the use of proceeds — to fund a new project in Guyana.

Sergio Díaz-Granados, executive director for Colombia at the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), will become the new executive president of Latin American multilateral lender CAF in September after obtaining more votes than Argentine candidate Christian Asinelli.

Colombia’s sovereign bonds experienced a modest sell-off on Friday after Fitch become the second rating agency in less than two months to downgrade the government’s credit rating to sub-investment grade. But analysts noted that the market was already largely expecting the downgrade, which is likely to limit further widening.

SierraCol Energy, the Carlyle Group-owned spin-off of Occidental Petroleum’s onshore operations in Colombia, sold its inaugural international bond issue on Monday to continue a surge in LatAm high yield issuance — though some bankers felt the underwhelming aftermarket performance of other recent borrowers affected the deal.

Frontera Energy on Thursday became the latest Latin America oil and gas company to take advantage of strong oil prices to tap bond markets, with the company — which operates mostly in Colombia — increasing the size of a five year deal and attracting a broad range of investors.

Emerging market fixed income analysts are right to assert that the asset class is well placed to avoid a taper tantrum such as it endured in 2013. That does not mean issuers should not be hurrying up their funding plans.