Is the 100-year Argentine bond good news or bad news?

Mr Costa explained that long-duration bonds are the best way for real money investors to place bets on Argentina, given that they are unable to leverage themselves like a more nimble hedge fund. “If you are an investor with a constructive view on Argentina, what you want is duration,” he said.

Argentina sold $2.75bn of the debt with a coupon of 7.125 per cent, equating to an annual yield of 7.9 per cent, according to a statement from the Argentine finance ministry late on Monday. The bond attracted $9.75bn in orders from investors.

But don’t focus on the 100 years:

Given the bond was sold at a yield of almost 8 per cent an investor would recoup their initial investment in around 12 years.

Yields could fall by at least 150 basis points, moving more in line with other major economies in the region such as Brazil — implying capital gains on such bonds in the double digits. “Those are pretty good returns. At a rate of 8 per cent or higher, it’s a buy,” Mr Costa said.

The bad news is what you must endure to have a crack at the 8 percent:

Argentina has defaulted on its sovereign debt eight times since independence in 1816, spectacularly so in 2001 on $100bn of bonds — at the time the world’s largest default — and most recently in 2014 after clashing with Elliott Management, an aggressive hedge fund.

But Mr Macri’s government “cured” the latest default in 2016, and times have changed, said Joe Harper, a partner at Explorador Capital Management, an investment fund focused on Latin America. “The policy pendulum in Argentina has shifted to the centre, and the country’s next 100 years will be very different than the last century.”

Here is the full FT story, by Benedict Mander and Robin Wigglesworth.

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