Navios Maritime Holdings' South American shipping arm is aiming to sell a $500m bond issue.
Navios South American Logistics will carry out a private placement to raise money to pay off other debt.
The notes will be offered and sold in the US to institutional buyers and in offshore transactions to non-US organisations.
The company will use some of the issue to discharge an indenture related to its outstanding $325m, 7.25% senior notes due in 2022.
Navios Logistics will also repay all amounts outstanding under a term loan and use the rest for general corporate purposes.
Prospects good
In a first-quarter results statement this month, parent Navios Maritime Holdings said prospects are particularly good for Navios Logistics, with unspecified expansion planned.
Formed in 2007, the company has six oceangoing product tankers focusing on coastal cabotage trades, plus a bunker ship and an estuary tanker.
It also controls 332 dry, liquid and LPG barges and pushboats transporting cargoes across river systems, as well as a floating dry dock.
In May, it signed an agreement with Vetorial Mineracao for the transshipment of iron ore through the terminal in Nueva Palmira, Uruguay. Trader Cargill will pay Navios Logistics the transshipment fees under this contract.
The deal reflects a number of trial transshipments of cargo originating from Vetorial mines in Corumba, Brazil. In exchange for these trial operations, Navios Logistics expects to receive $900,000 and intends to enter into a long-term agreement with Cargill for the transshipment of iron ore.
Profit up but uncertainty lurks
Navios Logistics' first-quarter net profit was $7m, up from $5.3m for the corresponding period in 2019.
It said in March that it received a notice of force majeure from a shipyard, CIE, building six liquid barges ordered in the third quarter of 2019.
The yard resumed work on 4 May, with the units expected to be delivered from the fourth quarter of this year.
The company said the business could be hit by Covid-19 lockdowns.
It warned that if coronavirus effects continue, it may be unable to charter vessels at the rates or for the length of time currently expected, or to begin or complete construction of its planned terminal facilities in Porto Murtinho, Brazil, and Nueva Palmira.
