Banco Pine has become the first Brazilian Huaso bond issuer, raising UF1.5m ($72m) in Chile’s domestic bond market. The sale comes as several issuers had contemplated the asset class since its inception more than three years ago, with limited results. “It will open the doors for new companies to come to Chile to diversify the market, and that’s good for everybody,” says a person familiar with the sale. Bankers generally note that Huaso deals must make sense from a cost of funds perspective. So, although there are other interested borrowers in the pipeline, there should be only a couple of deals at most in 2013. The mid-sized lender’s 2017 bullet bond priced at a discount with a 6.0% coupon to yield 6.75%, or government bonds plus 400bp. The issuer had been expecting a 7.00%-7.25% range, according to people familiar with the transaction, noting that the level it got is very competitive to what Banco Pine could do in the dollar market. Institutional investors made up more than half the book, with wealth management accounts making up a sizeable portion of the remainder, they say. Surprising those who expected a larger Brazilian issuer to be the Huaso debutant, Pine first met Chilean investors in September. It has a UF6m program of up to 10 years in Chile. BTG Pactual, Celfin and JPMorgan led the deal, rated A minus on a national scale. In August, Mexico’s Corporacion Geo completed the first Huaso since 2010, though the smaller-than-expected size of UF0.34m was not encouraging. The homebuilder priced the 6.5% 2020 at a 7.8% yield via Santander. Previously, only Mexico’s America Movil and Peru's BCP had sold Huaso bonds.