Brazil

Brazil’s Odebrecht Oil & Gas filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Friday to help implement a previously announced multibillion-dollar debt restructuring, The Wall Street Journal reported. Odebrecht Oil & Gas, an arm of engineering conglomerate Odebrecht SA, sought chapter 15 protection, the section of the bankruptcy code that deals with international insolvencies, in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. Large foreign companies, particularly those with U.S. operations or dollar-denominated debt, often file for bankruptcy in the U.S.

An influential shareholder in Brazil's Oi SA is working with U.S. and UK distressed debt hedge funds to maintain his central role at the telecoms provider as it struggles to emerge from bankruptcy protection, four sources said. The funds, the smallest group of Oi bondholders known as the G6, could help Nelson Tanure, who has a 6.5 percent stake in Oi and significant board clout, fend off rival restructuring plans by the company's two largest bondholder groups, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story.

The two largest groups of Oi SA bondholders have agreed to inject more cash into a proposed restructuring of the Brazilian telecom’s debt, two people familiar with the matter said on Friday, in the latest twist in Latin America’s biggest-ever bankruptcy, Reuters reported.

The risk of a government intervention in bankrupt telephone group Oi SA has subsided after shareholders gave assurances they would not change its current managers, Brazil’s telecoms regulator Anatel said on Thursday. “Intervention is no longer imminent,” Anatel chief Juarez Quadros told reporters. He said shareholders had sent the company emails assuring its managers that “at no time” had they or the board of director considered replacing them, Reuters reported. Brazil’s Solicitor General Grace Mendonça also said intervention of the debt-laden carrier was the last thing it had in mind.

Brazilian phone carrier Oi SA faced two setbacks from the government on Monday in its efforts to pull off the country’s biggest-ever in-court debt restructuring, Reuters reported. Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel rejected the company’s request to swap billions of reais in regulatory fines for new investments. Anatel said in a statement that the “unsatisfactory” progress of Oi’s reorganization, now in its 16th month, raised doubts about the company’s ability to honor investment commitments resulting from a fine-for-investment swap.

The judge overseeing phone carrier Oi SA’s bankruptcy case agreed on Friday to give creditors and the company more time to reconcile competing restructuring proposals, 16 months into Brazil’s largest in-court reorganization, Reuters reported. The judge, Fernando Viana, acted on a request filed on Thursday by several creditor groups including state-owned banks and bondholders, court documents showed. A creditors’ meeting to vote on a Oi restructuring plan had been scheduled for Monday, but Viana postponed it until Nov. 6.

The board of Brazilian telecoms regulator Anatel will meet on Monday morning to analyze a request by indebted carrier Oi SA to swap billions of reais in regulatory fines for new investments, a source with knowledge of the situation said Thursday. The board will decide on the fate of almost 5 billion reais ($1.58 billion) in fines the company has accumulated, said the source, who requested anonymity as the matter is private, Reuters reported.

China Development Bank plans to sign a document signaling support for the restructuring plan of debt-laden Brazilian phone carrier Oi SA, said two people close to the discussions. The bank may sign the agreement with Oi as soon as Tuesday, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private negotiations, Bloomberg News reported. The Chinese bank has been discussing in court how to restructure $1.2 billion in financing it provided to Oi just six months before the operator filed for the largest judicial recovery in Latin America’s history.

A group of bondholders that are Oi SA’s largest creditors demanded on Sunday that the company’s top executives meet them as soon as possible to renegotiate a debt plan, Reuters reported. In a letter viewed by Reuters that was addressed to top Oi executives and board members, Oi’s two biggest bondholder groups demanded the carrier’s executives meet in New York to “negotiate in good faith and on an expedited basis the terms of an acceptable plan(s) of reorganization.” The letter was sent by the main advisors of the International Bondholders Committee the Ad Hoc Group of Oi Bondholders.

Brazilian phone carrier Oi SA submitted a plan on Wednesday to restructure its 65.4 billion-real ($21 billion) debt burden with a proposal to limit the debt-for-equity swap demanded by creditors to 25 percent of capital, Reuters reported. The plan was delivered to a Rio de Janeiro court and creditors of the largest-ever bankruptcy proceeding in Latin America will vote on it on Oct. 23. Oi proposes to inject up to 9 billion reais, of which 6 billion reais would come from a stock offering and the rest through the debt-for-equity swap.