REUTERS - SANTIAGO Chile’s leading airline LAN plans to issue bonds worth up to $200 million to finance investments and refinance debt, in the latest of a flurry of Chilean corporate bond issuance in 2009, the country’s market regulator said. LAN said it would issue two bonds in the local market, one with a maturity of 10 years and another with a maturity of 30 years, in either dollars, pesos or inflation-indexed peso units.

The bonds will be used “to finance investments of the company and its affiliates and to refinance debt”, LAN told the regulator in a note published overnight. It said the bonds could be issued in the “general market”, but did not elaborate.

A string of Chilean companies have turned to corporate debt issues this year to finance debt and investments to steer clear of global markets battered by financial crisis and bank lending restrictions. State oil firm ENAP has placed $335 million worth of 10-year bonds denominated in inflationindexed peso units to refinance short-term debt. To finance investments, fertiliser, iodine and lithium exporter Soquimich placed the equivalent of $174 million in bonds in pesos and inflation-adjusted peso units.

Wood products manufacturer Masisa also turned to the local market, dominated by pension funds, insurance companies and mutual funds among others, to place around $100 million in bonds to pay down short-term debt.

LAN, which has affiliates in Ecuador, Peru and Argentina, accounts for more than half of Chile’s international passenger traffic and nearly three-quarters of its domestic traffic.