BELIZE BONDS EXPECTED TO REACH 5 CENTS ON THE DOLLAR, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT!

DESPITE DROPPING BELIZE BOND PRICES, EXPECTED TO REACH A LOW OF 5 CENTS ON THE DOLLAR AND MASSIVE INTEREST RATE CUT, TO BETWEEN 1 AND 2%, IN LINE WITH BANK INTEREST RATES IN THE USA.  GIVE BELIZE THREE YEARS TO GET OVER THE BAD TASTE AND BOND INVESTORS IN EMERGING MARKETS WILL BE CLAMORING FOR MORE BELIZE BONDS.  THEY ARE ALREADY PROFESSING INTEREST.  COUNTRIES LIKE BELIZE, GUATEMALA, SRI LANKA, ARE ALREADY EXPECTING GROWING INTEREST IN NEW BOND ISSUES.  THERE IS TOO MUCH MONEY FLOATING AROUND IN THE WORLD LOOKING FOR SOMEPLACE TO INVEST.  TRILLIONS UPON TRILLIONS LOSING VALUE TO INFLATION.



There’s worse. If the government sticks to its original proposals, says Stuart Culverhouse, head of research at brokerage Exotix, the principal of the bond, currently at $544 million, could fall under $500 million. That will push it out of the main bond benchmark for emerging markets, JP Morgan’s EMBI Global, and would trigger automatic selling by funds benchmarked to the index.  Culverhouse predicts that the bond, now trading at 42 cents on the dollar, will fall eventually to the low-20s. It started the year just over 60 cents.


JP Morgan which had been advising an overweight position on Belize relative to the EMBIG index, cut its recommendation to marketweight on Thursday. It tells clients:

We see the government’s opening stance indicating there is little upside to current bond prices, especially over the coming months.

So will the Belize debacle cool some of investors’ enthusiasm for frontier markets?
Maybe not.  Bonds from these countries, mostly poor and usually first-time bond issuers, have been in high favour due to the yields they offer and so far this year they have outperformed the broader bond index.  A country like Belarus for instance provides a 900 basis-point premium over U.S. Treasuries compared to the 160 bps pickup provided by a “safer” emerging markets credit Brazil.
What’s more, these frontier markets have been active bond issuers of late and already make up a tenth of the index (issuers include Sri Lanka and Guatemala that would once have been viewed as deadbeat credits).  JP Morgan calculates that $1.8 billion worth of frontier dollar debt hit the new issue markets in the first half of 2012 and predicts another $2.5 billion before the year is out.