Brazil

Brazilian telecoms company Oi SA’s board has approved the terms of a debt-for-equity swap endorsed by creditors, even as a shareholder said on Tuesday it had won a partial injunction against the plan. In a Tuesday securities filing, Oi said the board approved the issuance of up to 1,756,054,163 new shares, corresponding to a maximum 12.29 billion reais ($3.81 billion). Under the deal, unsecured bondholders will be able to participate in the capitalization of Oi by swapping a portion of their debt for shares in the company, as agreed in a restructuring plan creditors approved in December.

A Rio de Janeiro judge decided on Wednesday that a shareholders meeting called by a major equity holder in debt-laden Brazilian telecoms carrier Oi SA will have no legal effect on the company’s in-court restructuring, Reuters reported. Responding to various petitions from Oi shareholders, Judge Ricardo Lafayette Campos also upheld a plan approved by bondholders in December and courts in January to take the company out of bankruptcy protection. “I maintain ... the decision that made the recovery plan official,” he wrote.

Banks and investors involved in the court reorganization of energy group Abengoa Bioenergia Brasil SA hope to get paid through a potential sale of the company’s two sugarcane mills, two sources close to the matter told Reuters. There are non-disclosure agreements signed with four potential bidders for the mills, said one of the sources, Reuters reported. Two of the suitors already operate in the sector while the other two are investment funds, the source said.

Seara Indústria e Comércio de Produtos Agropecuários, a Brazilian mid-sized grain trader that sought bankruptcy protection last year, on Monday filed its recovery plan in a local court, the company said on Tuesday. Seara Agro, based in the Paraná state and with no relations to a more well known poultry and pork processor also called Seara controlled by JBS SA, caused a management reshuffle at U.S. cooperative CHS Inc last year after defaulting on a $218 million debt with it, Reuters reported. The grain trader also has Bunge Ltd, Dutch bank Rabobank Groep and Credit Suisse among its creditors.

Standard & Poor’s downgraded Brazil’s credit rating deeper into junk territory on Thursday, citing the government’s failure to pass key fiscal reforms, the Financial Times reported. The move by the rating agency is a slap in the face for the administration of President Michel Temer, which has been touting Brazil’s progress in recovering from its worst recession on record. The stock market has also been hitting new records.

The judge overseeing the restructuring process of Brazilian telecom company Oi SA approved a massive debt restructuring plan on Monday and called a proposed shareholders meeting “absolutely unnecessary,” Reuters reported. In the decision, Judge Fernando Viana gave the official go-ahead to Latin America’s largest ever in-court debt reorganization. On Dec. 20, a majority of Oi creditors approved a plan to restructure 65 billion reais ($20.1 billion) of debt, putting an end to a year and a half of negotiations.

Oi SA’s largest equity investor called for a shareholders meeting to decide whether to take legal action against the chief executive officer and the chief financial officer and to scrutinize parts of the Brazilian phone company’s restructuring plan, Bloomberg News reported. CEO Eurico Teles and CFO Carlos Brandao exceeded their authority by negotiating the plan with creditors without the board’s approval, and investors should decide whether to file a civil liability claim against them, Pharol SGPS SA said in a letter published Friday in a filing.

Brazilian telecoms company Oi SA is up for sale after it emerged from Latin America’s largest-ever bankruptcy protection process, Chief Executive Eurico Teles said on Wednesday. Teles said the company was ready to receive international investors and had received an offer of support from China Development Bank, Reuters reported. Many international investors, such as China Telecom Corp Ltd and China Mobile Ltd, offered a capital injection as the company struggled for a year and a half to restructure some 65.4 billion reais ($20 billion) in debt.

Oi SA creditors argued late into Tuesday night over a plan to restructure $20 billion in debt owed by the Brazilian telecoms company in Latin America’s largest-ever bankruptcy case as major creditors stayed silent about whether they would support it, Reuters reported. With creditors requesting one recess after another at a public meeting in Rio de Janeiro, a court-appointed administrator said the process would reconvene at 11:30 p.m. local time (0130 GMT). The management of Brazil’s No.

It’s only fitting that Oi SA, after filing for the biggest bankruptcy protection in Brazil’s history, is bringing its bitter 18-month restructuring battle to a crescendo with an epic creditors’ meeting at a rock concert venue, Bloomberg News reported. The venue for Tuesday’s gathering of about 4,000 people is RioCentro, the Rio de Janeiro events and convention center near where Rock in Rio was held last September.