Some 15 years after hitting foreign investors with one of the harshest sovereign bond renegotiations in modern history, Argentina unveiled a proposal for a new debt restructuring that appears to offer only slightly more generous terms, Bloomberg News reported. While government officials didn’t give all the specifics of their offer Thursday evening, they revealed enough to make clear that the losses for creditors holding some $70 billion worth of bonds would be massive. The highlights: a three-year moratorium, a 62% reduction in interest payments and a 5% cut in the value of the principal.

Argentina registered to issue more than $50 billion in new debt as it prepares to make a painful restructuring offer to holders of its sovereign bonds, Bloomberg News reported. The filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission gives an inkling of how much in new securities the country anticipates issuing in the restructuring. President Alberto Fernandez will meet provincial governors at 4pm Thursday at the presidential residence to discuss details of the debt plan, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter.

Argentina is set to make a debt restructuring proposal to international creditors this week amid delays caused by the coronavirus, an economy ministry source said on Tuesday, a key step as the country looks to strike a deal to avoid default, the Financial Times reported. Argentina’s government is locked in talks to revamp close to $70 billion in foreign currency debt issued under international law to push back payments that it says the country cannot pay unless given time to revive stalled economic growth. “They don’t think it will be tomorrow, it’s more likely on Thursday.

Argentina could announce an offer to restructure $83 billion in foreign-currency bonds as soon as this week as it tries to avoid default, despite shutting down the economy to contain the spread of the coronavirus, LatinFinance reported. "We will make the offer in the next few days," President Alberto Fernández said late Sunday in an interview on the local television channel Net TV.

Argentina will make an offer to its creditors “in the coming days” that will reflect the economic hit from the coronavirus pandemic, President Alberto Fernandez said in a newspaper interview. While debt talks are “going well,” calculations of debt sustainability will be affected by the impact of the virus, Fernandez was quoted as saying by Perfil. “The coronavirus affects debt renegotiation just as the coronavirus affects the entire global economy,” Fernandez said. “What we are going to sign is something that we can accomplish as a government and as a country.

Latin America’s economy was already going backward when the coronavirus hit. Now it’s at risk of losing a whole decade –- and pushing fragile democracies closer to their breaking points, Bloomberg News reported. Like most of the world, the region is bracing for the deepest recession in its modern history. Bank of America expects a 4.4% slump in output this year as the epidemic spreads. But what’s distinctive about Latin America is that incomes had already been declining for years –- driven in part by lower commodity prices.

Argentina unilaterally postponed until next year the payment on $10bn of dollar-denominated debt governed by local law on Monday in what some analysts have called a technical default, the Financial Times reported. The move has raised new concerns about Argentina’s approach to debt restructuring as it negotiates the fate of $83bn in debt issued under foreign law. Private sector investors holding that debt expect an offer to be made by the centre-left government of President Alberto Fernández as soon as this week.

The Covid-19 pandemic pushed Moody’s Investors Service to downgrade Argentina, Ecuador and Zambia deeper into junk territory on Friday, Bloomberg News reported. Moody’s warned of escalating default risks in the three developing nations as global coronavirus cases topped 1 million. The combination of stalled trade, low commodity prices and deteriorating growth has sent emerging-market risk premiums soaring. Bonds from Argentina, Ecuador and Zambia have tumbled amid concern the nations may follow Lebanon’s lead in defaulting.

Argentina’s debt restructuring talks with creditors will continue for at least two more weeks after the centre-left government failed to meet its deadline of March 31 to cut a deal, the Financial Times reported. The deadline had been considered to be ambitious by investors and economy minister Martin Guzmán admitted on Tuesday that the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now claimed 27 lives in Argentina, had further delayed progress in negotiations.

Argentina said it will still try to avoid a costly default, even as it extends a nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus. President Alberto Fernandez said that the country would still prioritize avoiding a default on its overseas debt, even though the already struggling economy will be hampered by a government-ordered lockdown, now in effect until April 12, Bloomberg News reported.