Mexico Raises $2.9 Billion to Buy Back Existing Global Bonds

Mexico tapped global capital markets for the second time this year, raising $2.9 billion of bonds aimed at buying back some of the Latin American nation’s outstanding debt.

(Bloomberg) — Mexico tapped global capital markets for the second time this year, raising $2.9 billion of bonds aimed at buying back some of the Latin American nation’s outstanding debt.

Of that amount, Mexico raised $1.35 billion from the sale of new bonds due in 2053. The country issued another $1.59 billion to buy back existing notes maturing between 2041 to 2052, the government said in a statement late Thursday.

The final amount of new 30-year bonds will depend on how much of the debt is accepted by the country. The results of the tender offer show Mexico repurchasing as much as $2 billion of existing notes, according to a separate government statement on Friday.

“I suspect they want to profit from the cheapness of the long-end to extend the maturity of their portfolio,” said Guillaume Tresca, global strategist at Generali Insurance Asset Management in Paris.

The sale is Mexico’s second in international markets this year, following a $4 billion offering in January. The nation’s dollar debt has handed investors average returns of 5.4% this year, compared to 1.6% in an index of peers, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. 

Last year, Mexico was the second-largest sovereign issuer of hard-currency debt in the developing world, selling about $9.5 billion in bonds, the data show.

Citigroup Global Markets Inc., HSBC Securities Inc., Mizuho Securities USA LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC are running both the new offering and the tender offer. Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC was tapped by Mexico as the billing and delivering bank for the tender offer. 

–With assistance from Carolina Gonzalez and Ezra Fieser.

(Updates comment in fourth paragraph.)

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