Banco de Bogota Preps Possible Take-Out

Banco de Bogota, Colombia’s second largest lender, will kick off global investor meetings in the US, Europe and Latin America this week. The debut borrower will see accounts in London and Santiago Tuesday, Boston and Lima Wednesday before wrapping up in New York and LA Thursday. Citi, HSBC and JPMorgan are leading the potential 144A/RegS transaction, rated Baa2. Banco de Bogota secured a $1.2bn 1-year bridge through those financial institutions to help it acquire BAC-Credomatic, a sizeable Central American bank that represents half of Banco de Bogota’s assets. Banco de Bogota’s CFO Maria Luisa Rojas Giraldo told LatinFinance in September the bank was looking at a $1bn 10-year bond to replace the bridge loan. Last month the bank was sounding the market with a $500m 3-year loan carrying a margin of Libor plus 225bp. The same banks were leading the loan transaction.