Mexican retailer Famsa has bought US store chain La Canasta for $37 million and will take over operations of the 12 outlets in California and Texas from 1 April, according to a filing with the Mexican Stock Exchange. According to Famsa, La Canasta’s shops focus on the Hispanic community in the US and returned sales of $60 million last year.
Category: Regions
Posted inDaily Brief
Mexico Sets Minimum Prices For Debt Exchange Warrants
Mexico set the minimum prices for the warrants in its $2.7 billion offer to exchange outstanding dollar and euro-denominated debt for locally issued Treasuries late Wednesday. The XWD07 and XWA07 warrants, which trade as a unit until September, will have a minimum price of $53.00, while the XWE07s have a minimum price of €20.00. The auction is being managed by Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs.
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Telmex Snaps Up Ecutel
Mexico’s largest telecoms operator Telmex has acquired small Ecuadorian operator Ecuador Telecom (Ecutel) for an undisclosed sum. Ecutel, which has only around 5,000 clients nationwide, competes in the local market against state-run entities Andinatel, Pacifitel and Etapa. Ecutel has a 15-year concession until 2017 to offer national long-distance fixed telephony services, as well as public telephony services and data transmission.
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Peru To Scrap Stock Market Tax Exemption
Peru is set to remove tax exemptions on capital gains in the stock market and interest on bonds, according to the country’s finance minister, Luiz Carranza. From 2009, a tax rate of 5% will be applied to capital gains on stock investments. However, capital gains and interest on government-issued paper will remain tax exempt.
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Peru Trade Surplus Widens
Preliminary figures from Peru’s Central Bank show that February’s trade surplus widened to $473 million, 10% up on the same month last year. Total exports rose to $1.83 billion, up 26% year on year, set against imports of $1.36 billion, 32% up on the same month last year.
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Mexico Launches $2.7 Billion-Equivalent Exchange
Mexico has launched an offer to buy back debt worth up to $2.66 billion as it seeks to replace more foreign currency debt with local currency issuance. For $2 billion in dollar debt, of which there are 12 different eligible outstanding tranches with maturities ranging from 2009 to 2028, the sovereign will issue 1 million units. They are composed of two kinds of warrants exchangeable for 9.5% 2014 and 10% 2024 MBonos later this year. For €500 million in euro, Deutsche mark and Lira-denominated bonds, Mexico will issue 500,000 warrants that will also be exchangeable for 2014s and 2024s in September. The warrants are rated BBB/Baa1/BBB. At the end of 2006, Mexico’s foreign currency debt totaled $39.8 billion, of which $36.2 billion was market debt, according to the Mexican finance ministry. Last year, Mexico paid down $9 billion in non-market debt. The pricing will be determined Wednesday. Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs are leading the offer.
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Trinidad & Tobago Sign Gas MoU
Trinidad & Tobago and Equatorial Guinea have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop natural gas projects in the two countries. Trinidad and Tobago – the world’s fifth-largest LNG producer – will send a team to Equatorial Guinea within the next few months to identify specific areas of cooperation.
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Venezuela, Nicaragua Sign Accords
Venezuela and Nicaragua have signed a series of agreements during a visit by President Hugo Chávez to the Central American nation. Venezuela has assigned $430 million to Nicaragua in projects covering energy, health and education. The lion’s share – or $340 million – is accounted for by cheap oil supplies, while $20 million goes towards capitalizing a branch of Venezuelan development bank Bandes in Managua. This is the second time Chávez has visited Nicaragua since the election of Daniel Ortega last year.
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Peru Taps Local-currency Issue To Sell $63 Million
Peru tapped its local currency 2026 bonds on Monday to sell $62.8 million worth (200 million soles) of the domestic paper. The funds raised will be used to meet non-financial public sector financing needs. The bond, which carries an 8.20% coupon was priced above par to yield 6.30%.
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CFE Offers $157 Million Of Bonds
Mexico’s state-owned electricity company – Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) offered $157 million worth of 10-year notes on Friday. According to the CFE, the bonds were sold to yield 0.345 percentage points above 91-day Treasury bills, or Cetes. The offering was four times oversubscribed, said the issuer.