Argentina

An Argentine prosecutor has requested that former President Cristina Kirchner be investigated as suspect in a wide-ranging money-laundering probe allegedly involving a prominent government contractor and associate of Mrs. Kirchner, The Wall Street Journal reported. State news agency Telam reported on Saturday that federal prosecutor Guillermo Marijuan made the request to the judge in charge of the investigation focusing on Lázaro Báez, the owner of leading construction firms and partner of hotel and property businesses with Mrs.

Argentina’s Senate gave the green light to a landmark deal to repay creditors holding defaulted debt in the early hours of Thursday, marking the end of a 14-year legal battle that had made the country a global financial pariah, the Irish Times reported. The deal, which had already been approved by the lower house of Congress, is the cornerstone of new President Mauricio Macri’s plan for revitalising an economy hobbled by low investment, high inflation and precarious central bank reserves.

Argentina settled with an additional 115 individual creditors holding defaulted sovereign bonds for $155 million, Daniel Pollack, the court-appointed mediator in the long-running case, said on Friday, Reuters reported. Pollack's announcement brings the total amount of settlements agreed in principle with U.S. creditors for more than the original $6.5 billion pot of money committed to end the dispute. The most recent settlement also moves Latin America's No. 3 economy closer to ending a festering 14-year legal battle over its historic default.

Argentina’s deal to put a bitter 15-year creditor saga behind it won’t come cheap, Bloomberg News reported. On Sunday, the country agreed to terms with bondholders led by hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer over unpaid debts from its record $95 billion default in 2001. The settlement, which will let Argentina regain access to overseas bond markets, is the biggest, and arguably the most significant, in a string of creditor accords struck by President Mauricio Macri since he took office Dec. 10. The tab for all these deals?

Argentina is poised to return to international capital markets after a 15-year ban as it finally reached an agreement with a group of creditors led by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, the Financial Times reported. The deal, which has to be approved by Argentine lawmakers, is to pay $4.653bn to settle all claims with four “holdouts” that had refused to restructure debt after the country’s 2001 default.

After winning a victory in its decade-long battle with a group of US hedge funds in a New York court, attention now switches to Argentina’s congress. Judge Thomas Griesa said on Friday that he would lift a controversial financial blockade preventing Argentina’s access to the international capital markets, the Financial Times reported.

After more than a decade of legal warfare, Argentina could be on the cusp of peace with its creditors. However, even if Buenos Aires does reach an accord with Elliott, experts fear the saga will leave a toxic legacy for the wider sovereign debt restructuring world that could linger for years to come, the Financial Times reported. “In many ways this stopped being about Argentina a long time ago,” says Anna Gelpern, a law professor at Georgetown University.

Over the past few days, the talk among those who watch "the most miserable country" in the world has turned to default, Business Insider reported. This year, it seems, is Venezuela's year. "Unless the Chinese pull something out of the bag or PDVSA [Venezuela's state oil company] exercises a voluntary bond swap it's happening," said Brian Dean, a partner at ACG Analytics. "There's going to be a default in my view unless there's some kind of political disruption ... They can sell assets but I don't know what they have left." The "default" calls have gotten especially loud over the last week.

Argentina has offered to pay $6.5 billion to a group of hedge funds holding bonds it defaulted on 14 years ago in a historic effort by the nation to put a bitter legal battle behind it, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. Montreux Partners and Dart Management, two of the hedge funds, have accepted the proposal, which would pay three-quarters of a $9 billion claim on defaulted bonds, according to emailed statements from Daniel A. Pollack, a court-appointed arbiter, and Argentina’s finance ministry.

Argentina made its first agreement with a group of “holdout” creditors that rejected debt restructurings after the 2001 default on Tuesday, moving a step closer to regaining unfettered access to international capital markets, the Financial Times reported. The new government of President Mauricio Macri, who has vowed to normalise relations with the rest of the world, will pay a group of Italian bondholders $1.35bn in cash. That represents 150 per cent of the value of the $900m in bonds that Argentina defaulted on 15 years ago.