Brazil

Speculation about consolidation is a staple in Brazil’s highly competitive, fast-growing telecom sector. Now, conditions may be ripe for action. NII Holdings Inc. has skyrocketed this year in New York trading, signaling that investors are stepping up their M&A bets as two favorite targets finish actions that could pave the way for deals, Bloomberg News reported. Nextel Telecomunicacoes Ltda., NII’s Brazilian unit, concluded a debt restructuring and is in better shape to be acquired as the country slowly exits a long recession.

The construction unit of Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht SA is seeking to win $18 billion in engineering contracts in the next two years and could partner with a strategic foreign investor, the unit’s chief executive, Fabio Januário, told Reuters. Januário said a foreign partner could help to reduce dependence on Brazil’s oil and gas sector, whose fortunes have swung sharply over the past decade with the price of crude oil, Reuters reported. “We are open to partners but it has to be someone who gives us that,” Januário said during an interview on Friday.

Oi SA, Brazil’s largest fixed line telecom firm, called a general shareholders’ meeting on Sept. 3 in Rio de Janeiro to formally vote on a 4 billion reais ($1.07 billion) capital injection, the company said, Reuters reported. In a securities filing made late on Wednesday night, the firm said shareholders would also consider the composition of a new board of directors and a number of by-law changes, confirming a Reuters report earlier in the day which said Oi would send the invite for the meeting as early as this week.

In a related story, Reuters reported that Brazilian telephone carrier Oi SA said on Wednesday that a judge in Lisbon had decided against validating the company’s restructuring plan in Portugal for now, adding that the decision will not keep the plan from going into effect. In a securities filing, Oi said a judge determined that there are outstanding appeals related to the firm’s restructuring of 65 billion reais ($17.4 billion) in debt that must be resolved before the Portuguese court signs off on the plan.

Oi SA, Brazil’s largest fixed-line telecom firm, is about to formally call for a general shareholders’ meeting, a source with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, as the company pushes ahead with its aggressive restructuring plan. According to the source, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter before the announcement, the firm plans to file a formal invite for the meeting to officially approve a 4 billion reais ($1.07 billion) capital injection into the firm this week or next, Reuters reported.

Italian utility Enel SpA has called a halt to further acquisitions in Brazil for the time being as it gears up to complete asset sales of up to 1.5 billion euros (1.34 billion pounds) in the second half of the year, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. "I don't see appetite for further acquisitions in Brazil at this stage," Enel CEO Francesco Starace told analysts on a conference call on Tuesday after the company released first-half results.

Three distressed asset funds have sued for the right to participate in a 4 billion reais ($1 billion) capital increase for Brazilian telecom Oi SA as part of its in-court restructuring, four sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters this week. The fight for the chance to invest in Oi, Brazil’s largest fixed line carrier, reveals a sharp turnaround in investors’ perception of a company that flirted with liquidation a year ago, Reuters reported.

A 200 basis-point increase in interest rates could spark a sharp rise in the proportion of emerging market corporate debt issues at risk of default, with Brazilian and Indian firms most vulnerable, a report from McKinsey Global Institute showed. Following a decade of loose monetary policy and historically low interest rates aimed at boosting economic growth after the 2008-9 financial crisis, global central banks including the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are either raising interest rates or signalling an end to accommodative policies, Reuters reported.

A consortium led by top oil trader Vitol has entered exclusive talks to acquire stakes in Nigerian offshore fields that are held by Brazil’s Petrobras and its partners, industry sources said, Reuters reported. The assets are estimated to be worth up to $2.5 billion, the two banking sources and one industry source told Reuters. The buyers are talking to state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA, known as Petrobras, which is leading the sale, the sources added.

When Pedro Parente quit last week as chief of executive of Brazil’s state-controlled Petrobras, Latin America’s largest oil company, he used his resignation to lament his countrymen’s apparent disdain for market dynamics, the Financial Times reported. Mr Parente, a champion of free-market policies, resigned after the Brazilian government gave in to truckers whose strike against an increase in fuel prices brought Brazil’s economy to its knees for 10 days.