It was the best of times and the worst of times for the Latin American syndicated loans market in 2006. Borrowers, especially at the top tier, got ever tighter pricing while lenders were forced to fall on the relationship sword. Mexican oil giant Pemex set the tone with a US$5.5bn blowout in January that heralded the year of the megaloan in the region. The refinancing wave continued at ever decreasing margins, while the definition of large was changed by an extension of the regional M&A tren

Katia Bouazza - HSBC Head of syndicated finance for Latin America at HSBC. Katia has over 12 years of experience of fixed-income business in Wall Street. She has been with HSBC for the past nine years and for the last six years has specialised in emerging markets origination with a focus on Latin America and previously Asia. Alonso Molina - BBVA Securities Head of syndicated loans, Americas at BBVA Securities, where he has been since 2001. Previously he worked in the infrastructure and project f

IFR: 2006 has been the year of the megaloan, the ever-bigger transaction. There was a wave of refinancings at increasingly tight spreads. And then we had CVRD, which kind of came out of the blue and I think surprised everyone with the response. Pricing continues to compress globally and Latin America seems to be going faster than anywhere else and the deals are getting bigger. What's the next phase for this market and how low can prices go? Juan Martin (ABN AMRO): Prices have compressed but I'm