The corporate debt market has entered a period of contraction, marked by cancellations, postponements, and restructurings of issuances, as the worsening fundraising window has driven away investors and increased the cost of new offerings.
According to a survey by the asset manager Sparta, of the 19 debenture offerings planned for April, eight were postponed and three were canceled. Of the remaining offerings, four were fully acquired by the coordinating banks and four had partial distribution. None were fully distributed to investors.
Among the cancellations is Zamp's 12th debenture issuance, worth R$500 million, with an additional allotment of up to R$100 million. The operation, which had an AA(bra) rating from Fitch and was to be coordinated by Itaú BBA and Santander, was ultimately withdrawn.
Days later, the owner of Burger King and Popeyes returned to the market with a different structure: an issuance of commercial notes worth R$ 500 million, coordinated by Bradesco BBI and subsequently portfoliod by the bank.
SBF, owner of Centauro and Nike's distributor in Brazil, also canceled a R$ 600 million offering. Subsequently, it launched a new issue of the same value, which ended up being absorbed by two financial institutions, without the participation of investment funds.
The list of offers revoked since March also includes the 1st debenture issuance by Rumo Malha Central and the 11th by Ampla Energia. In 2025, throughout the entire year, only one offer had been revoked, which reinforces the abrupt change in the environment.
According to Fitch, the instrument change in Zamp's case reflects more the deterioration of the window than a specific credit problem. "Perhaps there wasn't demand for the term and cost the company wanted to pay, or the company wasn't willing to pay the price and cost the investor wanted for that term," says Renato Donatti, senior director at Fitch Ratings.
The wave of cancellations is directly linked to the outflow of funds from credit funds, which reduced the demand for new issuances and put pressure on prices in the secondary market.
The recurring outflow of funds began to narrow the window for new issuances. With redemptions putting pressure on prices in the secondary market, investors started demanding higher premiums in primary offerings, leading companies to cancel, postpone, or redesign fundraising efforts.
The change is also evident in the composition of demand. A survey by NeoFeed , based on CVM data, shows that in debenture offerings completed between April and mid-May, funds held only 10% of the securities, while the total volume of issuances was 18.3% lower. In the same period of 2025, the funds' participation was 37%.
According to Anbima, in April, the fund industry experienced a net outflow of R$ 18.1 billion, driven by fixed income, which recorded net redemptions of R$ 19.3 billion.
Within the asset class, the biggest impact came from free-duration credit funds, with a net outflow of R$ 14.2 billion, the largest loss among all types in the month. Considering also free-duration credit and investment-grade credit funds, redemptions totaled R$ 24.3 billion in April.
The vicious cycle of bailouts
Ulisses Nehmi, CEO of Sparta Investimentos, states that the increase in redemptions and the decrease in the participation of funds in new offerings are a consequence of repricing in the secondary market.
"And this enters a vicious cycle, in which more redemptions cause asset managers to sell more bonds, causing spreads to increase, prices to fall, and generating more redemptions," says Nehmi.
After a long period of spread compression, the perception of risk changed with requests for judicial and extrajudicial reorganization from large companies such as Raízen , Ambipar , and GPA .
In the category of non-reliable credit funds, which led the redemptions, profitability has remained below the CDI (Brazilian interbank deposit rate) since February. Up to the end of April, the accumulated return for the year was 3.38%, compared to 4.48% for the CDI.
Although the drought affected all credit, incentivized debentures were the hardest hit. The median spread jumped from -0.66% at the end of January to +0.12%.
“This price volatility ends up closing the window for new issuances,” says Nehmi. “It’s a temporary closure. If the price stabilizes, the issuance will be up and running again in 15 days, as normal.”
Lawyers involved in structuring these issues confirm this interpretation. According to Henrique Filizzola, a partner at Stocche Forbes Advogados, the market "took a hit," leading issuers to postpone fundraising or revise terms.
"The market likes predictability. Even with interest rates as high as they are today, if there's a trend, whether it's going one way or the other, but something that's somewhat predictable, the investor can price it in, go to the market, and raise capital," he says.
Signs of stabilization
There are signs that the market is beginning to stabilize. In seven days, the spreads on incentivized debentures widened by only 0.03 percentage points; in one month, the widening was 0.16 percentage points. In the non-incentivized debenture market, spreads closed as small as 0.14 percentage points during the month, according to Credit Guide.
Another positive sign comes from fundraising: fixed income funds accumulated R$ 47.6 billion in net inflows in the first 13 days of May.
On the other hand, in incentivized funds, the bleeding continues. After a net outflow of R$ 3.71 billion in April, the trend is for even greater withdrawals in May. In total for the month, the outflow has already reached R$ 11.17 billion, according to Credit Guide.
“We are still quite cautious about this market, because we don’t know how far these redemptions can go. For now, we don’t see any sign that they are decreasing,” says Nehmi.
Given this scenario, Sparta's strategy is to maintain selectivity and liquidity. The asset manager believes there is still no clear entry point for hedged incentivized debentures until the secondary market stabilizes and the wave of redemptions loses momentum.
