LatinNews Daily - 27 February 2025

*Argentina’s government has placed treasury bills and bonds on the domestic market for a value of Ar$4.42trn (US$4.16bn). The operation included a series of treasury bills due to mature between March and June, and a series of treasury bonds due to mature in May. According to the economy ministry, the government received purchase offers for these securities for a total of Ar$5.31trn. On 17 February international credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) lowered its local currency sovereign credit ratings on Argentina to ‘SD/SD’ (selective default) from ‘CCC/C’ and its national scale rating to ‘SD’ from ‘raB+’. In a statement S&P noted that after two similar exchanges this year, Argentina had “undertaken another peso debt exchange offer for up to US$6.5 billion of a debt instrument that matures March 2025 in return for a reopened fixed-rate instrument maturing November 2025 – bringing its total exchanged local currency debt to US$78 billion since March 2024”. S&P said that continued recourse to such debt operations “reflects the sovereign’s limited ability to extend maturities and place paper in the local market, and we therefore consider this transaction distressed and tantamount to default”.