CAF Hits Japan Retail Buyers

CAF has raised JPY10bn ($123m) in the Samurai bond market. The Venezuela-based supranational lender priced the 2015 bond at par with a 1.0% coupon to yield Yen Libor+49bp, in line with 0.8%-1.1% guidance. Unlike most other Latin Samurais, the bond was sold primarily to retail investors, though was not the same type as the Eurobond retail Uridashi that CAF did last year. “This was the first retail samurai after the earthquake, and the first ever retail samurai by a Latin American issuer,” CAF’s international director Gabriel Felpeto tells LatinFinance. Daiwa managed the sale, rated A+. A planned benchmark USD bond could be next for the perennial multi-currency borrower. “We are looking at the market. The past few weeks have been difficult, but we are not in a rush,” Felpeto says. Domestic market issuance in the region is also a possibility. After raising $40m in Panama in May, CAF is also considering a Chilean market issue, among others, this year.