A Brazilian judge on Wednesday ruled that Imcopa, one of the country’s largest processors of non-genetically modified soybeans, will no longer be able to enforce early termination of a lease agreement related to two soy crushing plants, Reuters reported. Imcopa has been going through a bankruptcy reorganization since 2014 and wants to sell the plants to pay back creditors. Last week, Imcopa terminated a 10-year lease on the two plants with brewer Cervejaria Petropolis SA, prompting the beer maker to seek legal remedies.
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Shares in Brazilian telecoms carrier Oi SA posted heavy losses on Tuesday, after media reports that its largest shareholder, GoldenTree Asset Management, is seeking to replace Oi’s Chief Executive Officer Eurico Teles, Reuters reported. Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo reported earlier on Tuesday that GoldenTree, which holds a 14.5% stake in the company, sent a letter to the board saying Oi needs a CEO “that may execute the operational restructuring recently proposed,” the paper said, mentioning the letter was dated Aug. 16.
Brazilian telecom carrier Oi SA reported a steepening second-quarter net loss on Wednesday, confounding expectations for a narrower shortfall, as debt servicing costs rose and the real currency weakened, Reuters reported. In a securities filing, the company posted a quarterly loss of 1.559 billion reais ($384.81 million), compared to a loss of 1.258 billion reais in the same period of the previous year. Analysts on average expected a net loss of 437 million reais, according to Refinitiv data.
Brazilian construction conglomerate Odebrecht SA has proposed cutting the debt of its ethanol unit Atvos by between 35% to 75%, newspaper Valor Economico reported on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Citing court documents, Valor said Odebrecht proposed a 35% haircut on secured debt and 75% on the unsecured debt of its ethanol unit. Atvos debt subject to restructuring, excluding credits owed to other units of the Odebrecht conglomerate will have a global haircut of 46%, reducing its total financial debt from 10.5 billion reais ($2.65 billion) to 5.7 billion reais, the newspaper said.
Samarco Mineracao SA, the Brazilian mining venture that hasn’t operated since a deadly dam collapse in 2015, is close to regaining a license to restart production and move closer to paying back $3.5 billion in defaulted debt, Bloomberg News reported. The license will most likely be granted within the second half of this year, the Minas Gerais state environmental agency press department said in an email. A Samarco spokeswoman declined to comment. Negotiations with creditors will resume in October following the license renewal, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plans.
President Jair Bolsonaro will give Brazilians early access this year to as much as 30 billion reais ($8 billion) in funds normally set aside for the unemployed in an effort to spur the country’s moribund economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. A measure announced Wednesday by Economy Minister Paulo Guedes will allow Brazilian workers, starting in September, to take up to 500 reais of the money currently reserved in accounts set up by law by employers for workers who lose their jobs.
As negative yields engulf everything from Brazil’s state oil company to Hungarian sovereign debt to euro junk, investors are seeking refuge in high-yield bond ETFs, Bloomberg News reported. Europe-listed funds have attracted over 5 billion euros ($5.6 billion) since January, more than in any full year going back to at least 2010, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence. The largest exchange-traded fund tracking the debt -- BlackRock Inc.’s 8.5 billion-euro IHYG -- took in 640 million euros in the week ended July 5, smashing a record it set just two weeks before, the data show.
Brazilian telecom carrier Oi SA disclosed on Tuesday a new strategic plan aiming to divest up to 7.5 billion reais ($2 billion) in non-core assets and focus on its fiber-to-home (FTTH) broadband service, Reuters reported. The company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in June 2016 to restructure approximately 65 billion reais of debt, plans to sell towers, data centers, real estate assets, its Angolan subsidiary Unitel and other non-strategic assets between 2019 and 2021.
A Brazilian appeals court judge has allowed bank creditors of Odebrecht SA to take possession of shares in petrochemical company Braskem SA pledged as collateral for loans they made to the corruption-ensnared conglomerate, according to a document seen by Reuters. The new injunction, granted on Wednesday in favor of Brazil’s largest lender, Itau Unibanco Holding SA, overturns a ruling banning any sale or possession of Braskem shares by banks, Reuters reported. State-controlled lender Banco do Brasil has filed a similar request.