Category: Argentina

Argentina’s largest gas distributor, Metrogas, says it has improved its $440 million debt swap offer. It follows two years of failed negotiations with creditors. The new offer includes three options: a buyback of $750 in cash for every $1,000 of debt, or a choice of two different swaps of new debt, both due in 2014. The new offer is valid until 12 December.

Argentine Banco Hipotecario has decided to increase its planned issue of $100 million of notes to between $150 million and $150 million five-year bonds at 10%. The yield is above the 9.5% to 9.75% initially indicated. The issue is being arranged by Citigroup and Deutsche Bank Securities.

The Fourth Summit of the Americas, which took place on 4—5 November in the seaside town of Mar del Plata in Argentina, failed to reach a consensus on free trade and split the attending nations into two blocs. One group comprised the majority of the 34 nations and supported reopening negotiations on the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA or ALCA in Spanish), championed by the US, which have been paralyzed for the past two years. Five countries refused to sign up to resuming talks on ALCA, among them Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela.

The Fourth Summit of the Americas opens today in the coastal Argentine resort of Mar del Plata. The two-day summit brings together the leaders of 34 countries in the Americas, who this year will focus on poverty reduction and economic development.

The board of Argentine bank Banco Hipotecario has voted in favor of making a new offer to acquire the local shares of Italy’s Banca Nazionale de Lavoro, despite opposition from the government which owns a golden share in Banco Hipotecario. The original offer, made in February, had been accepted by the Italian bank before the government intervened.

US software giant Microsoft has announced that it plans to invest $60 million over the next three years in Argentina. Microsoft said the money will be used to reinforce its presence in the country, support the development of the technology sector and work with the government to offer accessibly priced computers.

Argentine Banco Hipotecario is planning to issuing $100 million of five-year non-guaranteed priority notes yielding between 9.5% and 9.75%. The issue will be arranged by Citigroup and Deutsche Bank. Standard & Poor’s has speculatively assigned a B- to the issue.

Preliminary figures show that Argentina’s rate of inflation in October slowed to 0.8% from 1.2% in September. The slowdown is due to the seasonal drop in certain areas of agricultural produce with a high preponderance in the consumer price index.

Argentina has confirmed that Venezuela bought $336.8 million of its latest Boden 2015 issued last week. The US dollar-denominated 10-year securities were issued with a fixed yield of 8.75%. Argentina sold a total of $631.6 million of the paper at the auction last Wednesday.

Argentina raised $631.6 million in its latest issue of Boden 2015 offering a fixed yield of 8.75%.The government fixed the yield following the failed sale last month when the sovereign refused to pay the average yield bid by the market of 8.8%. $493.9 million, or 78% of the issue, was bought by state-owned Banco de la Nación.