Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista's EBX Group, a once high-flying industrial conglomerate, began breaking up on Thursday, the latest victim of a decade-long commodities boom that has come to a screeching halt, Reuters reported. Batista, the founder and vital force behind the oil, energy, port, shipbuilding and mining group who branded all his companies with an "X" for "the multiplication of wealth," stepped down as chairman of MPX Energia SA, the embattled EBX Group's most promising company.

OSX Brasil SA, the shipbuilding company of billionaire Eike Batista, on Monday denied a report it failed to make payments on debt held by Spanish infrastructure group Acciona, Reuters reported. The local Folha da S.Paulo newspaper reported on Sunday that Batista's OSX Brasil was struggling to avoid bankruptcy after it defaulted on some 500 million reais ($222 million) in debt held by Acciona. "The story on the supposed debt with supplier Acciona that OSX CN failed to honor is false," OSX said in a market filing with regulator CVM on Monday. Representatives of Acciona in Spain had no comment.

Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista is struggling to avoid bankruptcy of its shipyard and ship leasing company OSX Brasil after it defaulted on some 500 million reais ($222 million) in debt owed to Spanish infrastructure group Acciona, Folha de S.Paulo daily reported on Sunday. OSX Brazil, which recently fired 300 employees to cut costs, is now under pressure from banking creditors to pay off or renegotiate some 2 billion reais in short-term debt, the newspaper reported without revealing its source.

Edno Santana de Vasconcelos, a resident of Brasília, was delighted when he secured a new dwelling earlier this year under the government’s “my home, my life” housing programme for lower income earners. But if he thought the scheme, with its subsidised mortgage, was generous he was more impressed this week to learn of the government’s “my better home” plan, the Financial Times reported. This is a line of cheap credit entitling people in the housing scheme to buy up to R$5000 ($2,334)-worth of washing machines, fridges or televisions for their new digs.

A surge in requests for bankruptcy protection among Brazilian small- and mid-sized corporate borrowers is setting off an alarm among private-sector banks, which could raise borrowing costs and restrict access to credit to fend off the practice, analysts at BTG Pactual Group said on Tuesday, Thomson Reuters News & Insight reported.

Brazilian regulators want to speed up a plan to pull power holding company Grupo Rede Energia SA out of bankruptcy protection in an effort to avert service disruptions. Administrators assigned to keep Rede Energia's companies running during the bankruptcy process are running out of funds, which could compromise basic upkeep and lead to spotty service, Edvaldo Santana, head of energy regulator Aneel said on Tuesday. The process should be concluded ahead of a court-mandated deadline in July, sources had told Reuters in late March.

The Brazilian government, concerned about systemic risk in the rapid growth of banking assets, will propose legislation to make shareholders, bondholders and depositors pay for rescuing troubled banks and shield taxpayers from the cost of bailouts, Reuters reported.

Brazil's central bank appointed a committee on Thursday to investigate the reasons behind last year's collapse of Banco BVA SA for an additional 120 days, giving potential buyers more time to consider acquiring the mid-sized lender, Reuters reported. The central bank seized the Rio de Janeiro-based bank on Oct. 19, citing deteriorating financing conditions and a breach of regulations. At the time, regulators gave the bank's administrators 90 days to find a buyer or face liquidation.

Opposition from foreign bondholders is unlikely to stop the takeover of Brazilian power holding company Grupo Rede Energia SA by two rivals, several sources with direct knowledge of the situation told Reuters. The process should be concluded ahead of a court-mandated deadline in July, and the buyout plan by Equatorial Energia SA and CPFL Energia SA may help limit losses for bondholders, the sources said. But bondholders are fighting a proposal that would restructure Grupo Rede's debt and cut the value of their holdings by 85 percent.

Brazil’s consumer-loan default rate fell in November for the first time in five months as the government pushes banks to reduce interest rates, Bloomberg reported. The consumer default rate fell to 7.8 percent from 7.9 percent in October, the central bank said in a report distributed today in Brasilia. Interest rates to consumers fell to a record 34.8 percent.