The Deuda in pesos from the national Treasury begins to generate doubts again in the markets. It happens that as a consequence of the disarmament of passive repos in the Central Bank, there has been an increase commitments made by the government up to the equivalent of 24.3% of GDP.
What is the advantage that the government has of keeping the majority of the public debt in the “Treasury risk” instead of the BCRA: is that as the Treasury bills are placed below par, they do not generate interest for accounting purposes and therefore do not generate a financial deficit.
In this way, the total debt can be increased, but It does not break with the government’s intention to show a primary and financial surplus at the end of the year.
This week the National Treasury must renew maturities for $288,276 million, but the Ministry of Finance may take financing above that amount and then allocate it to cancel BCRA debt, as it did on other occasions to continue with the entity’s sanitation process.
The government is ensuring that banks pour the pesos they capture in the market into Lecaps, the capitalizable bills that have become stars of the market, because they offer better performance than passes. The Lecaps capitalize interest every month and are paid at the end, which implies that all those issued in 2025 have no impact on the financial result in 2024.
The risk of this is that it will be put back together The “wall of maturities” as in 2023 kept the markets in suspense in the election year
How much is the Treasury debt?
According to estimates by the consulting firm Equilibra Of the $11.7 billion awarded in last Friday’s Treasury tender, $10.9 billion was explained by the disarmament of passive passess. Private banks dismantled $7.6 billion and public banks $3.3 billion.
On the other hand, the consultant indicates that the stock of paid liabilities went from representing 5.7% of GDP at the end of April to 3.5% in mid-May. “If we also account for the puts offered to banks not yet exercised, the fall was smaller: from 8.7% to 6.8% of GDP.”
According to the report, the counterpart of the fall in the Central Bank’s remunerated liabilities is the increase in the debt in Treasury pesos. “We estimate that it went from 22.8% of GDP at the end of April to 24.3% in May,” the study indicates.
In that sense, it is noted that “there has been talk about the cleanup of the BCRA’s balance sheet since the new administration took office.”
“At first glance, we notice an improvement in the balance, but “You have to look in more detail to be able to draw conclusions,” warns Balance.
It is stated that “although in liabilities the sharp fall in real terms of the expanded monetary base stands out (-41%), if we add the puts (liquidity insurance) in the hands of banks, the fall moderates to 11%, and if we also consider the issuance of Bopreal, which had as a counterpart the disarmament of passive repos, the drop is only 2.7% in real terms compared to November 2023.”
The view of the operators
Pedro Siaba Serrate of Portfolio Personal Inversiones pointed out that “to maintain last week’s scheme, where Treasury rates are higher than those of the BCRA, and in turn, make regulatory changes so that banks can continue increasing exposure to the Public Sector, crWe hope that he will be able to continue advancing in that line.”
PPI’s estimate is that the total debt in pesos reaches 47% of GDP but of this, only 17% would be in private hands.
The analyst of Cohen Argentina markets, Jerónimo Montalvoindicates while the Central Bank managed to lower all monetary aggregates in the first four months, thanks to its aggressive lowering of interest rates.
“The Central has been pragmatic with the objective of reducing the expansion of the monetary base via interest payments and with the aim of rotating that 1 day debt to the Treasury, which has a longer term and greater capacity because it has a surplus,” he explained.
For his part, the economist EZequiel Zambaglione, considers that the Treasury limit for taking on debt “will be given by the banks” who will analyze the potential risk of lending to the government.
However, Zambaglione believes that the government’s strategy “iss that inflation will fall faster and with this, if necessary, the rolling of the debt will not be a problem because the rate will go down.”
Source: Ambito
