Guatemala’s Industrial Preps More DPRs

Guatemala’s Banco Industrial will likely come to market next year with another diversified payments rights (DPR) bond, Luis Jorge Sifontes, assistant director of external financing, tells LatinFinance. “For us it is an efficient [way to raise funding] because it gives us better pricing,” he adds. It most recently raised $205m through a dual-tranche DPR issue. The 7-year was split into fixed and floating rate portions paying around mid 5% and L+237bp respectively. It also placed a 10-year at around L+350bp. On these types of trades, the bank has traditionally mandated Wachovia, though Citigroup led a transaction in 2007. The bonds are backed by remittances that the bank receives from companies and families. The borrower has also tapped the international markets twice with subordinated issues, most recently in July when Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) led a $150m 10-year Tier 2 issue that was priced at par to yield 8.25%. However, Sifontes says the bank has no need to raise more subordinate debt and is unlikely to return to the market in the near-term with these kinds of transactions.