Please see below, an article from EPIC Investment Partners discussing investment opportunities in Colombia. Received today – 24/04/2026
Colombia has been a difficult country to like, but a profitable one to own. At the end of March, the Republic’s 3.875 per cent dollar bond due in 2061 traded at 56.58 cents on the dollar. Less than four weeks later, the Ministry of Finance cleared the same bond in a cash tender at 64.875. That was more than eight points of capital appreciation in under a month, on a credit many investors had good reason to avoid.
The tender is useful, but it is not the main story. It showed that Colombia’s debt had become too cheap, even for Colombia itself to ignore. The more important question now is political. The first round of the presidential election is due on 31 May. Gustavo Petro cannot run again, but the vote is still a referendum on whether his project survives him.
That matters for bondholders. Petro did not create all of Colombia’s fiscal problems, but he has made them harder to overlook. The deficit remains large. Inflation is sticky. The central bank has been pulled into open confrontation with the executive. Energy policy has pushed Ecopetrol to look abroad for growth rather than commit more heavily at home. Relations with Ecuador have also deteriorated.
Iván Cepeda, the candidate of the left, would represent continuity with Petro’s Pacto Histórico. He is more diplomatic and less erratic than Petro, but markets would still read his victory as a slower repair of fiscal credibility, a more interventionist state and less immediate relief for the energy sector. The left has not collapsed; its congressional performance showed that Petro’s base remains mobilised.
Even so, the rightward shift is visible. Paloma Valencia’s March primary victory, with more than 3mn votes, gave the centre-right a candidate with momentum and organisation. Her choice of Juan Daniel Oviedo, the former head of the national statistics agency, as running mate adds a technocratic edge. That does not guarantee reform. Congress will remain fragmented and voters may want change without austerity. But it points towards more respect for the central bank, private investment and a pragmatic approach to energy.
Abelardo de la Espriella offers a more volatile version of the same correction. His appeal rests on security, lower taxes and rejection of Petro’s “Total Peace” strategy, which critics argue has allowed armed groups to consolidate. His style is not obviously reassuring, but his platform speaks directly to investor concerns over security, hydrocarbons and the state’s capacity to govern.
Colombia is not a pristine credit. The fiscal deficit is too large, policy credibility has been damaged, and the hydrocarbons policy is self-defeating. But none of this automatically creates an external solvency crisis. The maturity profile is manageable, the current account deficit is funded and reserves are not collapsing. Colombia remains messy, but serviceable.
That is why the bond story has changed. In March, the case was valuation. In April, the tender helped prove the point. By May, the question is political mean reversion. Fixed income does not require perfection. It requires compensation. Colombia still offers a spread, a discount bond, a tender precedent and an election that could shift policy back towards the centre-right.
For the past year, investors in Colombia have been paid to worry. They may now be paid to wait.
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Alex Kitteringham
24th April 2026