Guatemala

Sugar producer Imsa preps senior secured seven year

Central American drinks company says buy-back contingent on new issue

Emerging markets telco plans to raise $1.5bn of long-term debt

Investors say more LatAm sovereigns could issue in October to get ahead of further US Treasury moves

Idyllic conditions over but deals can still be done, say bankers

Colombian lender Banco Davivienda and Central American renewable energy company CMI Energía both priced new issues inside the ranges indicated at guidance on Thursday, as Latin American bond markets took advantage of a strong bid for US Treasuries.

Guatemala’s largest lender, Banco Industrial, returned to international bond markets on Friday after more than eight years away with a tier two deal that was more than three times oversubscribed.

Debt capital markets bankers covering Latin America continue to be impressed by the pace and variety of new issuance in January, with Guatemalan lender Banco Industrial the latest to join the primary pipeline.

Guatemala has settled a long-running legal dispute with Florida-based Teco Energy, allowing it to pay bondholders and avoid defaulting on an international bond.

Guatemala’s international bonds prices finally reacted this week to its failure to make a November 3 coupon payment amid a legal battle with a US energy company. But the Central American government’s public credit office says a solution is imminent and bondholders appear confident that default will be avoided.

Guatemala’s head of public credit said on Wednesday that the Central American sovereign hoped to resolve in the “next two days” a dispute with Florida-based Teco Energy that has caused its fiscal agent in New York to freeze a coupon payment due at the start of this month.

Guatemala is locked in a legal fight with Florida-based Teco Energy that public credit director Rosa María Ortega said in a motion to a New York District Court endangered the Central American sovereign’s “perfect” bond repayment record.