Panama’s Finance Ministry said it went to the bond market on Tuesday, raising $2.58 billion in a three-part deal that mixed cross-border notes with local bonds.

The sovereign issuer sold $1.25 billion worth of new 2032 bonds to yield 2.252% and added $1 billion to 3.87% 2060 bonds at a yield of 3.28%. It also reopened its 3.75% 2026 notes in the local market for $325 million at 2.77%.

“The sharp drop in public revenues, which we estimate will be approximately PAB3 billion [$3 billion] below the budgeted amount, forces us to go to the market… to fill the gap,” the ministry said in a statement.

Panama received close to $10 billion in orders for the new notes from investors in the United States, Europe and Asia, it added .

“This is an interesting deal for cross-over investors with sovereign mandates, but it is not so interesting for emerging market investors,” said an investor in the Boston area. “We have better options at higher yields.”

According to sources involved in the deal, Panama started the initial price talk for the 2032 notes around 195 basis points over US Treasury notes and set guidance at 160 points, plus or minus two points, before launching the deal at 158 basis points. For the 2060s, it put the IPTs just above 200 basis points and later launched the deal at 185 basis points.

On the local notes, the price talk opened in the high 200 basis points over US Treasury notes, which came down to 262.5 points at guidance, give or take 12.5 points, and 250 points at launch, sources said.

The bookrunners were Citi and Goldman Sachs.

Panama said it intends to use the proceeds to fund the budget and refinance debt. The country last sold bonds in March, when it priced $2.5 billion in 36-year notes to yield 4.5% in a deal that was three times oversubscribed.
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