Chile Is Poised for Record-Low Funding on Proposed Sale of Dollar Bonds
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By Sebastian Boyd - Sep 7, 2011 2:43 PM GMT-0300
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Chile may obtain its cheapest funding on record in a proposed dollar bond sale after the biggest rally since December 2008 in benchmark U.S. debt.
Chile, Latin America’s highest-rated borrower, plans to sell dollar bonds due in 2021 and increase its existing 5.5 percent peso-denominated bonds due in 2020, according to prospectuses filed today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Deutsche Bank AG and HSBC Holdings Plc were named as managers for both sales.
Even after the extra yield, or spread, investors demand for Chile’s 10-year dollar bonds instead of U.S. Treasuries widened 55 basis points in the last two months, the notes still yield 72 basis points less than the 3.89 percent paid when sold in July last year. That was the least Chile had paid to borrow since it first sold bonds as an independent republic in 1822, Finance Minister Felipe Larrain said at the time.
“This is a chance for Chile to lock in its cheapest funding ever,” said Siobhan Morden, head of Latin America strategy at RBS Securities Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut. “They’re probably the highest quality issuer in the world, so they’re not constrained by market volatility. Treasuries are at a low and risk appetite is improving.”
Chile plans to sell the bonds as soon as possible, according to a person familiar with the offering, declining to be identified because terms aren’t set. Both bond sales will be benchmarks, the person said, suggesting they will be at least $500 million in size.
Fourth Highest
Moody’s Investors Service rates Chile’s dollar bonds Aa3, the fourth-highest investment-grade rating. Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings rank them one level lower at A+.
“Chile is one of the better emerging market sovereigns out there,” said Cathy Hepworth, who helps manage about $15 billion of emerging-market debt for Prudential Financial Inc. in Newark, New Jersey. “In this environment, to the extent that people have cash, it’s attractive.”
Chile’s 2020 dollar bonds yielded 3.17 percent as of 1:08 p.m. New York time, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That is a 135 basis point spread over similar maturity U.S. Treasuries, up from 80 basis points on July 7.
Were Chile to offer investors a spread of 140 basis points over the 2.125 percent August 2021 Treasury note on its new bonds, it would find itself paying a yield of 3.42 percent, according to Bloomberg calculations.
“They’re taking advantage of the low yield curve rather than tight spreads,” said Donato Guarino, an analyst at Barclays Capital in New York. “Even though the spread has moved wider, U.S. yields are so low that this is cheap for them.”
Bond ‘Scarcity’
Chile may not need to offer an increased yield on the peso bonds to ensure a sale, Morden said. The outstanding bonds yielded 4.29 percent as of 1:37 p.m. New York time, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
“They don’t need to offer a new issue premium,” she said. “There’s a scarcity of bonds in the market. There’s a shift into global foreign exchange bonds at the moment because of the higher yields they offer and the low beta on foreign exchange.”
A low-beta currency is one that’s relatively insulated from fluctuations in market volatility.
Economic Growth
The Andean nation’s economy is growing at its fastest pace in more than a decade at a time when much of the world is struggling with a widening European debt crisis and slower global growth.
The $200 billion copper-based economy will decelerate in the third and fourth quarters after growing 8.4 percent in the first half of 2011, the fastest pace since 1995, Larrain said. The economy may grow by more than 5 percent next year, he said at the Bloomberg Chile Economic Summit on Aug. 24.
Chile has increased fiscal savings to $18 billion, the highest level since 2009 and about 9 percent of GDP. Copper prices, which plunged 6.6 percent last month after more than tripling in value since 2009, are underpinned by “robust” demand, Thomas Keller, the chief financial officer of Chile’s state-owned copper company Codelco, said at the Bloomberg conference.
Copper accounted for more than half of Chile’s exports last month, the central bank said today.
To contact the reporter on this story: Sebastian Boyd in Santiago at
sboyd9@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Attwood at
jattwood3@bloomberg.net
, muy caliente, el gobierno puede salir a frenarlo como ya lo hizo antes, veremos...