Peru’s solid economic performance puts pressure on both government and private sector to ramp up infrastructure projects to keep the boom going. Building material demand is surging.
Category: Corporate & Sovereign Strategy
Posted inMagazine
Peru Project Finance: Make it Rain
Odebrecht is using an auction structure to bring private-public financing to a Peruvian infrastructure project. The financing format may be used elsewhere in LatAm.
Posted inMagazine
Argentina Agribusiness: Feed the World
Demand for agricultural commodities is rising fast, propelling Argentine producers. However, they require significant investment to fully tap the country’s potential.
Posted inMagazine
Chilean Retail Comes Off Boil
Chilean retailers have unveiled aggressive expansion plans for 2011. Bottom line growth and stock performance are not expected to hit last year’s heady pace.
Posted inDaily Brief
TGN Names Execs
Argentina’s Transportadora de Gas Del Norte (TGN) has named Victor Bermudez as director of operations, and Diego Jalife as CFO, it says. Jalife joins from French energy company Total, while Bermudez has held various positions at TGN.
Posted inDaily Brief
Aeromexico to Go Public
Mexican airline Aeromexico plans to float at least a 15% stake on the Mexican stock market, according to local news and wire reports citing remarks from CEO Andres Conesa. The executive says the deal could come before the Easter holidays, and would be offered only in Mexico. Aeromexico is looking to raise capital to partly fund its investment project, which calls for it to invest MXP16bn over the next two years. About two-thirds would come from the sale and the company’s own resources, with the rest coming from a $314m loan from Brazilian exim bank Banco Nacional de Comercio Exterior de Brasil used to buy Brazilian airplanes. Actinver, Banamex, and Deutsche Bank are reported to be among the banks managing the sale. It would be Mexico’s first IPO since OHL Mexico’s MXP11.2bn sale in November.
Posted inDaily Brief
Cemex Reaches 2011 Obligations
Cemex has repaid approximately 98% of the total amount required by December 31 under its 2009 debt restructuring agreement, it says, following Tuesday’s $800m floating-rate bond sale. The cement maker, which restructured $15bn with banks in 2009, avoids a 50bp step-up to the refinanced debt’s interest rate of Libor plus 450bp. Cemex has also repaid 50% of the original balance outstanding under the agreement, and has addressed all maturities under the agreement until December 2013, it says. It sold $800m in 2015 bonds paying Libor +500bp Tuesday, getting $1.9bn in orders. Cemex also sold $1bn of bonds in January and $1.67bn of convertible bonds earlier this month.
Posted inDaily Brief
Brazil Tightens Currency Controls
Brazil has placed a 6% tax on international bond sales and loans with an average minimum maturity of up to 360 days. It is unclear if the measure, the latest in a series aiming to contain BRL appreciation, will have the desired effect. “We do not expect the decision to tax corporate issuance [to be] disruptive for BRL from a flow perspective,” says RBS. The measure reinforces a preference for a policy mix skewed towards macro prudential measures and away from less orthodox FX policies, adds the bank. It seems aimed at preventing excessive lending by taming banks’ credit lines from abroad, RBS says. Brazilian financial and non-financial institutions were using short-term instruments to bring money into Brazil, avoiding a ring-fence around 2689 foreign investor accounts that control foreign portfolio flows, says Barclays. The bank estimates that nearly a third of the $23bn inflows up to February came from such short-term debt. Barclays does not rule out further government measures if the real breaks through 1.65/USD mark, which it settled at Tuesday. Companies had previously paid a 5.38% tax on loans up to 90 days and zero when the maturity exceeded 3 months.
Posted inDaily Brief
Caribbean Hotel Pipeline Slumps
The pipeline of new hotel openings in the Caribbean is expected to weaken in 2011 and 2012 in comparison to 2010, Lodging Econometrics says in a report. The firm notes that this year, only 12 new hotels with a total 1,383 rooms are expected to open in the region. In 2012, activity is expected to drop to an extra 7 hotels with a total of 809 rooms. The pipeline has been weakening every year since 2008, the US-based hospitality research firm says. In 2008, 22 hotels with 5,848 rooms opened, while in 2009, some 25 hotels opened, but they had 5,443 rooms. Last year, 16 hotels with 3,129 rooms opened. “The Caribbean continues to struggle to regain footing,” the report notes. “The Caribbean pipeline is in a bottoming formation and will decline further as new project announcements into the pipeline are at the lowest Lodging Econometrics has recorded in the past 3 years,” it adds. The study includes all of the Caribbean islands and does not include countries like Guyana or Belize, which are sometimes considered part of the region.
Posted inDaily Brief
CFE Names CEO
Mexico’s government has named Antonio Vivanco as CEO of state-owned utility CFE. He replaces Alfredo Ayub, who is leaving after 12 years for health reasons. The move follows a month-long transition in which Vivanco was deputy CEO. Vivanco was most recently chief aide to President Felipe Calderon, and has worked in Mexico’s finance ministry, as well as in the private sector for consultants McKinsey.