Argentina

Argentina's national gas regulator, Enargas, has again extended its intervention in Transportadora de Gas del Norte SA, or TGN, one of Argentina's leading gas distribution companies, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. The extension will last for another 45 days, according to a statement TGN sent to the Buenos Aires Stock Exchange late Tuesday. Last year TGN said it would restructure $347 million in debt.

Argentine highway operator Autopistas del Sol SA, or Ausol, has again extended the closing date for a restructuring offer as many creditors continue to turn up their noses at the deal, Dow Jones reported. The restructuring offer was set to end on June 17, but has been extended again until July 16, Ausol said in an exchange filing. The offer was first made in January, and has been extended several times. So far, only 42% of the company's bondholders, representing almost $130 million, have accepted the proposal, virtually unchanged from the acceptance rate seen last month.

Argentina's government on Thursday stepped in to run the country's biggest natural gas distribution company, Metrogas SA, after Metrogas said it doesn't have enough cash to make debt payments and filed for bankruptcy protection in a local court, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported. Argentina's Planning Ministry rejected Metrogas' pleas for a tariff increase, instead blaming the company's heavy debt load undertaken prior to an economic collapse of 2001, and which it said "bears no relation" to Metrogas' investments.

Argentina’s new 2017 bonds sank in their first day of trading as the government began turning over the securities to investors as part of its restructuring of defaulted debt, BusinessWeek reported on a Bloomberg story. The 8.75 percent notes tumbled to 80.85 cents on the dollar from their issue price of 90.11 cents, Stone Harbor Investment Partners said. Argentina began issuing $738 million of the bonds today to institutional investors who participated in an early tender period.

Argentina extended the deadline for a debt swap aimed at helping the nation recover its credit standing to June 22 at the request of Italian banks, Economy Minister Amado Boudou said. The official said Italian banks had asked for the extension at a time when global financial markets are in turmoil over debt issues in Europe, Agence France-Presse reported. So far, officials said around 45 percent of holders of more than 50,000 dollars in debt have accepted the swap, and the government hopes to get 60-percent participation.

The Argentine government says it will offer $20 billion in new debt starting Monday in a long-awaited effort to resolve its default, BusinessWeek reported on an AP story. The debt swap comes as Greece struggles to avoid a default that could damage economies all across the European Union. After Greece, the two countries that bond market analysts consider to be most at risk of a default are Argentina and Venezuela.

Argentina will be forced to default by 2011 unless the government reaches an accord with investors holding $20 billion of bonds kept out of the last restructuring offer, Stone Harbor Investment Partners says. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner is negotiating terms of an agreement, which the government needs to regain access to international capital markets that it lost after stopping payments on $95 billion of debt in 2001, Bloomberg reported.

Argentina, hoping to sell bonds on international markets again, is trying to clean up the fallout from its $100 billion debt default in 2001 and 2002, Reuters reported. In 2005, the government asked investors to accept steep losses on Argentine bonds, a proposal rejected by about a quarter of bondholders. Argentina has not been able to issue debt on global markets since the default, partly because of lawsuits from so-called holdouts who rejected the restructuring.

Argentina needs to be in an International Monetary Fund program to conduct talks on restructuring its debt with the Paris Club of sovereign creditors, French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said on Sunday. Argentina owes some $6.7 billion in defaulted debt to the club. It wants to resolve the issue as part of an effort to get relations with the international community back on track after the country's 2001-2002 economic crisis. The country can either repay the debt in full, or seek a restructuring, which usually requires a country to be in an IMF program.

The chairman of General Motors Argentina, Edgar Lourencon, confirmed that the automaker would not lay off personnel in the country, a day after its mother company in the United States filed for bankruptcy protection, the Buenos Aires Herald reported. Dismissing any rumours about the future of the company, the head of the local branch of GM meanwhile announced that the company is currently developing a new model to be produced in a plant in Santa Fe, which will be exported to the rest of the countries of the Mercosur.