Cordoba Offer to Buy Back Cheaper Bond

Fresh off a new $400m dollar bond sale, Argentina’s Cordoba province is offering to buy back $150m in lower coupon bonds that it sold on the local market last year. The government is offering to buy back all of the 12% of 2017 bonds, sold in dollars but payable in pesos, at par plus accrued interest. The offer is open until September 16, and can be extended for as much as a month. Banco de Cordoba, bookrunner on the original, is managing the sale. The province will fund the repurchase with proceeds from the $400m 12.375% of 2017 bond sold earlier this month in the international markets. The bond priced to yield 12.5% in an offer where demand surpassed $1bn. Citi and UBS managed that sale. Cordoba is rated B3. The province is making the offer to comply with the terms and conditions in the original documentation of the bonds, it says.