Peru

Peruvian mining company Minsur, which will shortly begin operations at a copper project that almost triples its previous size, has signed a loan with two international banks to finance a buy-back of old bonds. The liability management exercise comes as the leading candidate in Peru’s presidential elections said he wanted to raise taxes and royalties on the mining sector, and nationalise the country’s wealth.

Peruvian bonds barely moved this week after a shock in the first round of the country’s presidential elections on April 11, while Ecuador debt reacted spectacularly to a positive electoral surprise on the same day. Yet there are concerns about complacency towards risks in Peru, where a left-wing radical took most first-round votes, and Latin American bond buyers should brace for more volatility as the region faces an exceptionally busy election cycle.

Andean Telecom Partners (ATP), a digital infrastructure provider operating in the Andean region of South America, has begun investor calls ahead of what would be its inaugural bond issue.

Peru’s largest lender, Banco de Crédito del Perú, offered a slim new issue concession on Tuesday as it sold $500m of tier two bonds, with bankers saying that liquidity dynamics remained favourable for Latin American issuers.

Banco de Crédito del Perú (BCP), Peru’s largest lender, scheduled investor calls beginning Monday morning ahead of a proposed 10.5 year non-call 5.5 tier two bond that will be used to refinance existing bonds.

LatAm bankers and investors say a strong issuance window for non-Brazilian credits has opened, as political and fiscal concerns take their toll in Latin America’s largest economy.

Peruvian food retail and pharmacy group InRetail Consumer took advantage of calmer markets and the scarcity value of Peruvian corporates to achieve higher oversubscription and greater pricing compression than any Latin American new issue since February 18. on the way to a $600m seven year on Thursday.

InRetail Peru Corp is looking to issue a $750m bond through its consumer division in an attempt to offer buyers greater liquidity and more diversified credit exposure than its previous bond issues, which have never exceeded $400m.

Bond bankers covering Latin America say that previously rare 20 year deals could become a popular maturity for the region’s sovereigns after Peru included a 2041 note in a $4bn triple-tranche dollar issue this week. The sovereign followed up the dollar deal with €825m in euros on Thursday, thus wrapping its external funding needs for the year, according to a finance ministry official.

Modest order books and higher new issue concessions for dollar and euro issues this week showed that emerging markets borrowers are operating in a different market to a month ago, before inflation concerns had brought non-stop volatility to US Treasury markets.

Peru is set to test Latin America bond market resilience to both US rates volatility and domestic election uncertainty soon as it meets fixed income investors virtually this week ahead of a proposed euro and dollar new issue.

Mexican petrochemicals producer Alpek shrugged off a sharp sell-off in US Treasury yields earlier in the week to notch a highly oversubscribed 10 year bond in the only public benchmark new issue from Latin America this week.