Argentina to ‘try not to’ sell bonds in January, Caputo says

Argentina wants to avoid selling bonds under New York law in January, Economy Minister Luis Caputo said on X, as anticipation for the country’s comeback to international debt markets continues to mount. 

Caputo, who was responding to a question on the social media website about whether Argentina would issue bonds next month, added that the government wants Wall Street to be a “marginal source of financing.” 

“The objective is to eliminate the dependence the country has on Wall Street,” Caputo wrote on Tuesday. 

Caputo and President Javier Milei have repeatedly emphasized the country will make its January 9 bond payments. The country owes its bondholders US$4.5 billion then, and has a similar amount due in July. 

Besides selling bonds to refinance payments, Caputo has previously touted a menu of options available to the government, including a repo line with banks and a US$20-billion swap line from the US Treasury.  

Investors have been readying for Argentina to return to global debt markets as yields fall to around to 10 percent, near the levels that Caputo has signalled he’d be willing to sell bonds at. Earlier this month, the minister said Argentina was “the closest we’ve ever been to having access to markets.”

The last time the nation had sold hard-currency debt – excluding the 2020 restructuring – was under former president Mauricio Macri, who tapped Caputo as his finance secretary at the time. In May, the country’s Treasury placed a five-year, peso-denominated bond open to international investors subscribing in US dollars. Then this month, it sold US$1 billion in local-law bonds, which was seen as another step to regaining access to global debt markets. 

But Caputo has also insisted on the need for the country to develop its domestic capital market. That, he says, would allow companies and provinces to finance themselves locally rather than resorting to international investors.

“No country has the dependence on Wall Street that Argentina has,” Caputo said last week in an interview on a YouTube channel. “Argentina never developed a capital market.”

The minister’s comments follow a wave of Argentine corporate and provincial issuances after the midterm election in October 26, which saw sovereign risk drop sharply and opened the door for the country’s largest companies to tap international markets once again.