New placements of long-term debt securities totaled 87.1 billion pesos ($4.84 billion) between January and March, far above the 16.3 billion pesos placed over the same period of 2022, according to Grupo BMV data. In the first quarter of 2021, corporate bond issues totaled 8.5 billion pesos. "What we're seeing here basically is due to the fact that companies have been recovering following the pandemic," said James Salazar, an analyst at CI Banco. "They bring expansion plans, infrastructure. That is why they resort to all kinds of financing, including this mechanism." The pent-up demand is not likely to be sustainable and a slowdown is expected in the second half of the year, he added. Mexico's economy, Latin America's second largest, expanded by 3.1% in 2022, and could grow up to 3.0% both this year and next, boosted by increased manufacturing investment and cooling inflation, according to government estimates.
Grupo BMV, which has faced a stream of companies delisting and problems luring others to offer IPOs, said the banking sector led the corporate bond issues, amounting to 68% of the total 21 issues in the quarter. ($1 = 18.0035 Mexican pesos) (Reporting by Noe Torres; Writing by Anthony Esposito; Editing by Jamie Freed)
