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.

Spain's infrastructure company Ferrovial SA is in talks to acquire from its Spanish rival Grupo Isolux Corsan SA three power transmission projects in Brazil, according to a Ferrovial letter seen by Reuters on Friday. Isolux is undergoing debt restructuring in Spain and has stopped development of the power transmission lines, whose licenses it obtained from the Brazilian government in licensing tenders in 2014 and 2015. Brazil's electricity watchdog, Aneel, is considering canceling the licenses and promoting a new tender to find a substitute for the battered Spanish company.

Oi SA could scrap a proposed three-year restriction on creditors swapping part of their debt for equity, in a sign that Brazil's No. 4 wireless carrier wants to lure bondholder support to exit bankruptcy protection faster, two people with knowledge of the matter said on Friday. The limit, which Oi included in a reorganization proposal on Sept. 5, drew creditor anger and helped slow the carrier's in-court restructuring. Chief Executive Officer Marco Schroeder told Oi's two bondholder groups this week that shareholders now seem less reluctant to accept a debt-for-equity swap, the people said.

As revolutionary as the Temer government’s proposed public spending cap could be, it’s far from the only measure Brazil needs to prevent a fiscal debacle. Among the many dysfunctions dogging Latin America’s biggest democracy -- prolonged recession, a loss-making pension system, systemic corruption -- one of the most insidious has gotten scant attention to now: explosive state and local debt, Bloomberg News reported. Consider Rio de Janeiro, which in June declared a state of financial calamity, the political equivalent to bankruptcy.