Covered Bond Talks Price

Panama’s Global Bank is out with 5.00%-5.25% yield guidance as it prepares to price a $200m 5-year covered bond as soon as today. Some investors are taking a look at Central American and Andean bank paper as comps for LatAm’s debut in the asset class. “This is 40bp-60bps back of some of the other Central American [and] Andean bank comps, which is where it should be given it is a number four bank in a smaller market than BCP, BBVA Continental [or] Banco de Bogota,” says a West Coast portfolio manager looking at the trade. Other investors, though, expecting the deal to gain traction and do well, have decided to opt out because of size. “At 5.00%-5.25% guidance the deal is cheap, but a lot are staying away because the size is too small,” says a senior portfolio manager. Deutsche Bank is managing with HSBC as co-manager. The transaction is rated Baa3/BBB minus, above Global’s Ba1/BB+ default rating.