Volatility defined global markets in 2025, but in Central America it proved less an obstacle than a filter, separating episodic activity from sustained execution. Few institutions demonstrated that distinction as clearly as BofA Securities, whose franchise combined sovereign financing, supranational benchmarks, corporate lending, complex capital instruments and marquee M&A into one of the most active and influential years the region has seen.
“This has probably been one of the most active periods we have seen in quite some time,” says Ricardo de Bedout, a managing director overseeing Latin America and the Caribbean outside Mexico and Brazil. “The market has demonstrated much resiliency for local sovereigns and corporate access both in bonds and loans. There has also been substantial inbound appetite from strategic investors into the region.”
That resilience was tested early with sovereign and supranational issuance that reopened long-tenor markets and pushed the region into new funding currencies. On the sovereign side, BofA led El Salvador’s return to the thirty-year market with a $1.0 billion 9.650% senior unsecured bond due 2054. Executed alongside a concurrent tender offer, the transaction extended duration, reduced refinancing risk and reset the sovereign curve, tightening outstanding bonds across the maturity spectrum and restoring confidence for a lower-rated issuer.
At the supranational level, BofA played a central role in the Central American Bank for Economic Integration’s funding strategy, delivering its largest-ever US dollar benchmark: a $1.50 billion three-year sustainable bond. The deal achieved material tightening versus prior benchmarks and was followed days later by CABEI’s inaugural sterling transaction, a £750 million sustainability bond that became the largest pound-denominated issuance by a Latin American multilateral.
BofA’s capital markets work extended into quasi-sovereign power. Acting as sole bookrunner and ratings advisor, the bank structured Comisión Ejecutiva Hidroeléctrica del Río Lempa’s $580 million senior unsecured bond due 2033, the first international bond from a Salvadoran sub-sovereign in a decade. An unconditional New York law government guarantee enabled credit substitution and tight pricing, reopening global markets for non-sovereign Salvadoran issuers.
Loan markets were equally active. The Republic of Panama executed a landmark €1.2 billion unsecured loan, diversifying funding away from the US dollar and capturing meaningful all-in cost savings versus equivalent dollar funding. The two-year facility, priced at six-month Euribor plus 2.11%, reflected confidence in Panama’s credit profile while reinforcing proactive liability management.
For corporates, BofA led Central America Bottling Corporation’s $450 million syndicated loan, the largest such transaction in Guatemala in fifteen years. The multi-jurisdictional facility combined scale, flexibility and tenor to support regional expansion while broadening CBC’s lender base under volatile conditions.
In financial institutions capital, BofA coordinated Banco Latinoamericano de Comercio Exterior’s $200 million Additional Tier 1 issuance, the first fully Basel III-compliant AT1 from Central America and the Caribbean since 2021, reopening a critical regulatory capital instrument for the region.
Equity advisory rounded out the platform. As exclusive capital markets advisor to Millicom, BofA guided the delisting of its Swedish depositary receipts and consolidation of trading in the US, sharply increasing liquidity, simplifying governance and supporting shareholder returns.
M&A provided another pillar. BofA advised on Cemex’s sale of its Guatemalan operations to Holcim, executed a complex financial services divestment for Grupo Assa, and advised on the sale of Panama Canal Railway Company to APM Terminals—transactions that reshaped portfolios and regional infrastructure.