Argentine Finance Minister Martin Guzman said finalizing a plan with the International Monetary Fund to repay $45 billion in debt likely won’t happen by May or June, Bloomberg News reported. Changing the terms of a previous repayment program would require the support of nations like the U.S., China, Germany, Japan and France, the finance minister said in an interview with CNN Espanol. The Argentine government is unable to pay the IMF the $45 billion required between September 2021 and 2024, he said.
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Bondholders filed suit in New York on Tuesday against Argentina's Buenos Aires province after talks broke down over restructuring $7.1 billion in provincial debt as the country’s leftist government seeks a larger accommodation with the International Monetary Fund to regain market access, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. GoldenTree Asset Management LP and other investment firms sought a judgment in the U.S. District Court in New York over the province’s failure to make debt payments stretching back to April of last year.
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After nearly a year of extending the deadline of its debt restructuring proposal, fresh documents published by Argentina’s largest province show talks remain stuck, Bloomberg News reported. The province of Buenos Aires presented the details of a proposal shown to one of its largest creditors, GoldenTree Asset Management, under a nondisclosure agreement which has since expired, according to a statement posted online.
Argentine farmer Javier Rotondo says he should be reaping a historic bounty with grain prices surging to their highest level in years, the Wall Street Journal reported. Instead, he reduced his corn crop by 20% after authorities temporarily suspended exports to reduce food prices, one of several measures by Argentina’s leftist government that economists say are suffocating business. Mr. Rotondo expects to take on debt to pay a new wealth tax, and he is bracing for price controls after President Alberto Fernández recently warned ranchers that rising beef prices won’t be tolerated.
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Argentina’s state-owned oil producer looks set to avoid a hard default after creditors signed on to swap some of their bonds due next month and the central bank agreed to provide the company with the dollars it needs to pay back the remainder, Bloomberg News reported. YPF SA bondholders will exchange almost 60% of the $413 million note due in March, according to a company statement.
YPF SA, Argentina’s state-run oil driller and refiner, looks set to avoid a costly default next month after it won support for a debt swap from a large creditor group, Bloomberg News reported. The so-called Ad Hoc Bondholder Group, which holds 45% of YPF’s 2021 notes, expressed support for the exchange after the company increased its cash sweetener over the weekend, according to a statement. Bonds due in 2021 rose 4.5 cents to 95 cents on the dollar as of 10:40 am in New York, the highest since Jan. 8. The company’s shares climbed as much as 6%.
In the 99 years since it was founded to pump the oil fields of Patagonia, Argentine energy driller YPF SA has been whipsawed by countless booms and busts. If global oil markets weren’t collapsing, it seemed, then Argentina was mired in a debt crisis that was wreaking havoc on the whole nation’s finances. Never, though, had the company been pushed into a large-scale default of any kind, Bloomberg News reported. Until, it would appear, now. Word of this came in an odd way: Officials at state-run YPF sent a press release laying out a plan to saddle creditors with losses in a debt exchange.
Shunned in global financial markets, Argentina is seeking about US$5 billion for next year from multilateral organisations other than the International Monetary Fund as it negotiates a larger refinancing programme with the Washington-based lender, according to three people familiar with the plans, the Buenos Aires Times reported. Alberto Fernández’s administration is looking to institutions including the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank, said the people, who asked not to be named because discussions are private.
Argentina’s Peronist government has had a wild ride in its first year of government: a sovereign default, mammoth debt restructurings, sliding reserves, a currency crisis and a weak economy battered by COVID-19, Reuters reported. There have been wins and losses since taking office in December last year. Debt deals were struck that allowed the government to revamp some $110 billion in foreign currency bonds and push repayments well into the future. Crunch talks with the International Monetary Fund remain positive.