In a strong bet on a
reduction in inflation and the gradual abandonment of the exchange rate
in the second half of the year, the Government will launch this Monday and Tuesday
the largest debt exchange in pesos in memory in Argentina
, a test key whose result will be known on Friday and aims to clear
payments of $54 billion until 2028, the equivalent of 95%
of the maturities planned for 2024.
The call was announced at the end of the round on Friday, although negotiations with private banks began in January.
The objective of the Ministry of Economy is to take Treasury bonds at a fixed rate Badlar and adjustable by inflation (CER), official dollar (dollar linked) and dual (the best result among the previous options) that mature this year and issue new titles tied to prices (Boncer) to 2025, 2026, 2027 and 2028.
The measure will allow extending maturities in a year that Caputo seeks
to achieve financial surplus,
60% until 2026. More than half of the securities to be eliminated are in the public sector.
The Central Bank bought a part in 2022 and 2023 to indirectly finance the Treasury.
Since the BCRA cannot participate in primary Economy tenders, the way to renew maturities is with an exchange.
In this context, the Government seeks
to get rid of all bonds with "exchange insurance
" (linked and dual), which represent half of the eligible basket ($28 billion), while the rest are CER ($26 billion), according to the economist Salvador Vitelli.
In this way, without maturities subject to the official devaluation rate, Caputo would have fewer restrictions on abandoning the stocks in the middle of the year, as Javier Milei intends.
"It is expected that the exchange will be
well accepted by public organizations
and banks, being more uncertain with respect to other market players. If successful, it not only allows extension of terms, but is a step forward to facilitate the exit from the stocks," said a operator.
"The exit from the stocks in reasonable schemes is floating or dirty floating, that's why you want debt that does not adjust to the exchange rate," said Martin Salvo, BIND investment manager.
What the market looks at is the participation of the private sector.
The Ministry of Finance, headed by Pablo Quirno, has just delivered to the banks about $11 billion in put options, a kind of insurance by which the entity undertakes to buy the bonds in the event of a fall in their price.
It is still unclear how much of the eligible bonds are subject to puts and whether the BCRA will maintain the benefit for those who enter the exchange.
On the other hand, some investors observe that the temporary appetite for dollar-linked bonds has been lost and that the rates offered by the Treasury with the new CER titles (between -3.9% in 2025 and 1.39% in 2027) are in line with the market.
"
It is not a matter of earning money, but of losing as little as possible,
the average real rate in Argentina 2004-2015 should be close to the -5% average in terms of monetary policy, -1% is not that bad," said Salvo. .
With inflation in February around 15%, the market could find an
incentive to exchange bonds,
since at their maturity they will not obtain similar returns to place the pesos as long as the stocks continue, the liquefaction of the local currency promoted by negative rates (below the CPI) and the Government manages to reduce the financial surplus, which means that its need to finance spending with the issuance of debt in pesos would decrease.
That is one of the main goals agreed with the Monetary Fund.
The agency also expects Caputo to advance in the gradual replacement of securities adjusted to the dollar and inflation with others with a fixed rate;
the brake on BCRA financing to the public sector and the elimination of puts.
The debt swap, something that has the endorsement of the IMF, would contribute to some of these objectives, decompressing fiscal accounts in the short term and an eventual rate cut.
"What they are trying to do is achieve a good result, show that they are decompressing maturities and allowing the Central Bank to renew, they have a high floor for all the securities that the BCRA bought and probably something else that they achieve privately than what expires in the first semester," said Gabriel Camaño, economist at the consulting firm Ledesma.