In terms of volume, Morgan Stanley romped home the clear winner in Latin international bond issuance in 1998, taking a 19.24% share of the market and leading 19 deals. But in terms of innovation, the praise has to be spread more widely, with the leading houses coming up with ever more ingenious structures for the region's most sophisticated and active borrower: Argentina.
Morgan Stanley also played its part on this front. It led a Dm500 million ($305 million) step-down 10 put five-year deal that kicked-off Euromarket activity in late October (together with a reopening for Argentina led by Goldman a few days earlier), after the Russian crisis had effectively closed things down in August. Another clever deal came in the following month, when Argentina, this time led by JP Morgan and Deutsche, issued the first stand-alone emerging-market bond in dollars since August, increasing it from $750 million to $1 billion on strong US institutional demand. The feature that most attracted investors in this instance was warrants giving the right to buy 30-year Argentina paper a year later. Euromoney made this deal the runner-up in the Latin sovereign sector.