Brazil

The largest shareholder in Oi SA will oppose any alternate reorganization plan that does not come from within the debt-laden Brazilian phone carrier, which is struggling to emerge from bankruptcy protection. In a statement sent to Reuters on Friday, Portugal's Pharol SGPS SA said it will only endorse alternatives to Oi's original reorganization proposal if the carrier's board approves changes. The statement specifically referred to a proposal made by billionaire Paul Singer's Elliott Management Corp this week.

Brazil's federal government and Rio de Janeiro state have agreed on a package of austerity measures that will partially plug the financially struggling state's anticipated $8 billion deficit. The federal government offered Thursday to defer the state's debt payments for up to three years, in exchange for spending cuts and tax increases, The New Zealand Herald reported on a Reuters story. Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles told a news conference the measures would yield around $6 billion in total. They include nearly $3 billion in spending cuts.

Brazilian pulp and paper company Fibria dropped controversial language on a 10-year Green bond on Wednesday amid strong investor pushback, sources told IFR. Fibria was one of several companies this week to drop the aggressive terms, which make it easier for borrowers to breach covenants without offering investors compensation.

A group led by creditors and Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris unveiled on Friday an alternative restructuring proposal for debt-laden Brazilian phone carrier Oi SA that contemplates 37 billion reais ($11 billion) in investments over five years in exchange for a 95 percent stake, Reuters reported. The group of bondholders represented by Moelis & Co and Sawiris told Oi on Friday they would also raise $1.25 billion in new capital and take immediate control of the carrier through a debt-for-equity swap. Oi filed in June for Brazil's largest ever bankruptcy protection.

Ecovix Engevix Construções Oceánicas SA and five subsidiaries have filed for bankruptcy protection in a federal commercial court, succumbing to a debt burden of 8 billion reais ($2.4 billion) and a plunge in shipbuilding, Reuters reported. In a statement on Friday, Ecovix said Banco Brasil Plural SA and law firm Felsberg Advogados will advise it on bankruptcy protection proceedings, which will take place in a court based in the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul. Cash at the shipbuilder is being depleted at this point, the statement said.

The Brazilian government is considering easing legislation overseeing the acquisition of companies in distress or under bankruptcy protection by making buyers less liable for the burden of past obligations, O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper reported on Thursday. According to Estado, which did not say how it obtained the information, Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles plans to propose the amendments to the country's bankruptcy law in a policymaking meeting later in the day.

Brazil’s Senate on Tuesday approved a measure capping public spending, delivering a victory to embattled President Michel Temer, who is struggling to close a massive budget deficit and revive the nation’s moribund economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. In an unusually rapid session with little discussion, lawmakers voted 53 to 16 to approve a constitutional amendment limiting the nation’s annual spending growth to the previous year’s inflation rate.

Oi, the Brazilian telecom operator at the centre of a R$65bn debt default, the largest in the country’s history, is likely to consider more favourable debt-for-equity swap conditions for creditors in talks this week, the Financial Times reported. Oi chief executive officer Marco Schroeder said he was hearing creditors were discussing among themselves a proposal to convert some of the estimated R$32bn owed to bondholders into equity immediately and restructure the remainder into 10-year notes rather than accepting three-year convertible bonds as earlier proposed by the company.

A group of creditors of Brazil's struggling phone operator Oi SA, including export credit insurers and banks, plans to present to the company in the next two weeks a new restructuring proposal. The group, represented by FTI Consulting Canada ULC, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, Mattos Filho, Veiga Filho, Marrey Jr. and Quiroga Advogados, said in a statement that it is in talks with the Sawiris Group and bondholders represented by Moelis & Co for an alternative restructuring plan for Oi, Reuters reported.

President Michel Temer moved to lift Brazil’s retirement age to 65 from an average of about 54 as he tried to shore up market confidence in his government by reforming one of the world’s most generous social security systems, the Financial Times reported. The pension plan, presented to Congress on Tuesday, is an attempt by Mr Temer to regain the initiative after several weeks of scandals, protests and poor economic data that have threatened to loosen the president’s grip on power.