Follow-Up on Colombia - Colombia To Sell Up To 15% Stake In Ecopetrol-Finance Minister

The Colombian government plans to sell as much as 15% of state-controlled oil company Ecopetrol SA (ECOPETROl.BO) to finance construction of new roads and other projects in the country, Finance Minister Oscar Ivan Zuluaga said Wednesday.

The Energy and Mines Minister Hernan Martinez is currently drafting a bill to be sent to Congress that would allow the government to sell as much as 15%, up from the 10% previously announced, Zuluaga said.

"There is a group of legislators ready to support the proposal," Zuluaga told reporters.

(She's Colombian so I thought it was appropriate)

The Colombian government owns 89.9% of Ecopetrol, and the remainder floats on the local stock market after the company sold a 10.1% in an initial public offering in 2007 to raise fresh capital to speed up its investment program.

The company has been allowed by Congress to sell another 9.9% in new shares to raise fresh capital. Ecopetrol's Chief Executive Javier Gutierrez has said the company won't sell before late 2010 or 2011.

Shares of Ecopetrol ended 1% down at 2,605 Colombian pesos ($1.33), while the benchmark IGBC stock index fell 1.1%.

A 15% stake in Ecopetrol would be worth about COP16 trillion at current market price.

Colombia Sells Y45B In 10-Year Samurai Bonds -Finance Minister

The Colombian government sold 45 billion yen ($500 million) worth of 10-year bonds in Tokyo to finance its 2009 budget, Finance Minister Oscar Ivan Zuluaga said Wednesday.

The new bonds, which were sold at par, will yield 2.42%, Zuluaga said in a press conference in Bogota. The sale is part of a plan to diversify financing sources, he added.

The government will swap the proceeds of the bond sale into dollars, but won't change the dollars into pesos, he said.

"We don't want to take the currency risk," Zuluaga said. The government needs dollars to pay its dollar-denominated expenditures such as interest payments and weapons, he added.

Last month, Zuluaga had said the government was halting peso purchases to limit the currency appreciation.

Yen-denominated bonds issued in Japan by foreign borrowers are called Samurai bonds.

The bonds are guaranteed by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation and were lead managed by Mitsubishi UFJ Securities and Daiwa Securities SMBC.

The sale is the first bond offering by Colombia in Japan since 2005, when the country also issued bonds in a similar JBIC-backed private placement.

The new bonds will replace borrowing from multilateral lenders that was scheduled this year.

Zuluaga said the government doesn't plan to carry out this year any more borrowing for its 2010 needs.