Billionaire Retail Titan Can Avert Downgrade: Chile Fixed Income
- Cencosud dollar bonds recover last week even amid cut warnings
- Central Bank to release minutes of Dec. 4 meeting Thursday
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Cencosud SA, the South American retail giant founded and led by billionaire Horst Paulmann, has what it takes to avoid a credit downgrade even as Chile’s economy reels from the biggest social unrest in decades.
That’s the message investors got after Cencosud’s dollar bonds due 2023, 2025 and 2027 returned 0.7% last week despite fresh warnings that a credit downgrade to junk is looming. That result beat the average return of all Chilean bonds in the period, as well as that of rival Falabella, whose 2025s returned a mere 0.3%.