Brazil

Shares of Brazil’s state-owned oil company Petrobras plunged nearly 15 per cent in early trade on Thursday after the company’s overnight announcement of a surprise diesel price cut to pacify striking truckers, the Financial Times reported. The Brazilian bellwether stock was down 13.71 per cent at R$20.08 per share just before midday, dragging the benchmark Ibovespa index 1.81 per cent lower to 79,402.02 points.

A U.S. bankruptcy court is set to hear a dispute involving Brazilian telecoms company Oi SA and major shareholder Bratel Brasil SA, Bratel said on Wednesday, as investor discontent with Oi’s bankruptcy reorganization process shows no signs of abating, Reuters reported. On Friday, Bratel, a subsidiary of Portugal’s Pharol SGPS SA, which owns almost 28 percent of Oi’s common shares, said it had filed a legal complaint in the United States.

Brazilian development bank BNDES is in talks with four companies interested in acquiring the operation of Viracopos airport, the bank’s chief executive officer said on Tuesday. Viracopos’ operator filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday and CEO Dyogo Oliveira said the bank will try to find a solution before the courts decide on the reorganization, Reuters reported. According to Oliveira, European and Asian companies are interested in operating the airport.

A company set up to operator Brazil’s Viracopos airport filed for protection from creditors on Monday, according to a securities filing, but assured that operations at the major cargo hub will remain normal, Reuters reported. Aeroportos Brasil SA, which in 2012 won the concession for a 51 percent stake in the Viracopos airport, is jointly owned by Triunfo Participações e Investimentos SA, UTC Engenharia SA and France’s Egis Airport Operation. Triunfo and UTC each own 45 percent of ABSA, as the operator is known, while Egis controls a 10 percent stake.

Brazil’s government needs swift congressional action to avoid defaulting on loan guarantees it has made to Venezuela and Mozambique, Bloomberg News reported. Legislators must approve the use of up to 1.5 billion reais ($424 million) to honor loans that banks made as part of a policy to finance exports. Brasilia itself is on the hook because Caracas is poised to miss a May 8 deadline for a $275 million debt installment.

The board of Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel on Wednesday voted against a proposal by Telefonica Brasil SA to swap 3 billion reais ($861.08 million) in regulatory fines for new investments, Reuters reported. The Anatel board rejected the fine-for-investment swap by a 3-2 vote, said Juarez Quadros, head of the regulator. The company has been hit with various fines stretching back several years. Telefonica said in an emailed statement that the company lamented the regulator’s decision. It stressed it would continue investing in upgrading its operations.

The cash-strapped construction unit of Odebrecht, the Brazilian group at the centre of Latin America’s largest corruption scandal, said it would miss a Wednesday deadline for a R$500m debt payment, the Financial Times reported. But Odebrecht Engenharia e Construção said in a notice to investors that the group was in “advanced negotiations” on the payment and indicated it would be completed within a 30-day grace period, which would avoid a formal default.

Brazilian authorities said on Tuesday they had filed lawsuits against 17 people and two companies over losses suffered when the Petrobras employee pension funds and the Caixa Economica Federal invested in a special fund without due diligence, Reuters reported. The lawsuit is seeking 219 million reais ($65.55 million) in compensation, which authorities said is three times the losses caused by the poor investments. Petros did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. Caixa Economica’s pension fund Funcef declined to comment.

India’s Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd will try for a third time to sell sugar mills it owns in Brazil at an auction as part of a recovery plan in its in-court debt restructuring, according to court documents seen by Reuters. Renuka, which entered Brazil in 2010 and owns four sugar and ethanol plants in the country, presented a new plan to the court overseeing its bankruptcy protection case that proposed to sell the Revati or Madhu mills located in Sao Paulo state, or possibly both, Reuters reported.

A magistrate for Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice has issued an injunction that hands telecommunications firm Oi SA at least a temporary victory over shareholder Pharol SGPS SA in an ongoing legal dispute, the company said on Wednesday. In a securities filing, Oi said that magistrate Marco Buzzi had “provisionally” awarded jurisdiction in the dispute to a commercial court in Rio de Janeiro over an arbitration body that Pharol had appealed to, Reuters reported.