Brazil

Almost a year after a deadly dam spill at the Samarco mine, owned by BHP Billiton and Vale, there is still no date for restarting operations, complicating attempts to restructure Samarco's debt and increasing the possibility the miner may be allowed to run out of money. Vale and BHP have assured authorities they will cover the cost of Brazil's worst ever environmental disaster, sources familiar with their thinking say, stopping short of saying they will keep Samarco, for whom the closed mine is the only real revenue stream, afloat. Samarco's debt is trading at distressed levels.

Creditors of Oi SA, the Brazilian phone company that filed for bankruptcy with $20 billion of debt, view the restructuring plan the company presented late Monday as unfairly benefiting shareholders, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg News reported. The main issue is the right Oi has to redeem bondholders’ convertibles anytime it wants, the people said, asking not to be named because the position isn’t public yet.

Rio de Janeiro prosecutors have asked the court supervising Oi SA's bankruptcy proceedings to suspend a shareholders meeting scheduled for Sept. 8 to give the Brazilian phone carrier time to negotiate with a minority investor, Reuters reported. The purpose of the meeting is to decide on changes to Oi's board as proposed by activist minority investor Société Mondiale, according to a statement on Wednesday.

Testimony began Thursday in the impeachment trial of suspended Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, amid occasional shouting matches and mutual accusations between opposing lawmakers, The Wall Street Journal reported. “From now on, you will be judges,” Ricardo Lewandowski, the chief justice of Brazil’s Supreme Court, said in his opening remarks, reminding senators of the role they will play in a trial that is expected to conclude by next week. But from the start, the process took on overtly political overtones. Senators who have publicly supported Ms.

A Rio judge ruled Wednesday that the local Olympic organizing committee could be bailed out with public funds, a setback to prosecutors who had sought transparency in the committee’s budget first, The Wall Street Journal reported. Federal Judge Guilherme Couto de Castro lifted an injunction that had been in place since Friday and upheld on Monday blocking the Rio 2016 committee from receiving taxpayer funds unless it opens its books.

Banks and bondholders accounting for more than half of Oi SA's debt of 65.4 billion reais ($20 billion) are considering proposing a 5-year grace period and lower borrowing costs to speed up the Brazilian phone carrier's in-court reorganization, a person with direct knowledge of the talks said on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

Sete Brasil Participações SA presented a draft reorganization plan on Friday that includes seeking up to $5 billion in funding and downsizing business, three months after the Brazilian rig leaser sought court protection against 18 billion reais ($5.7 billion) in looming debt payments. Rio de Janeiro-based Sete Brasil is asking creditors, which include some of the world's leading shipbuilders and Brazil's largest lenders, to endorse a plan to help build between eight and 12 rigs, down from an original target of 28, Chief Executive Officer Luiz Eduardo Carneiro said in an interview.

State development bank BNDES, Brazil's main source of long-term credit for companies, posted a net loss in the second quarter, reflecting the burden of soaring loan-loss provisions as corporate defaults and bankruptcies hit all-time highs. In a Friday statement, Rio de Janeiro-based BNDES said that it had lost a net 2.174 billion reais ($689 million) in the first six months, reversing profit of 3.515 billion reais a year earlier. The number implies a second-quarter shortfall of 3.772 billion reais, according to Thomson Reuters calculations.

Oi SA is expected to burn less cash this quarter thanks to a June petition to win court protection from creditors, which is temporarily sparing Brazil's largest fixed-line phone carrier from paying debts, executives said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Chief Executive Officer Marco Schroeder told analysts on a conference call that planned changes in industry rules under discussion in Congress could help improve the outlook for Oi's operations. The company released weak quarterly results earlier on Thursday.

Phone carrier Oi SA, which filed in June for Brazil's largest ever in-court reorganization, will present a plan to overhaul business and repay creditors later this month or by early September, Chief Executive Officer Marco Schroeder said on Wednesday. Schroeder told reporters in Rio de Janeiro, where Brazil's largest fixed-line phone operator is based, that suppliers and creditors will be offered terms of the business reorganization plan, which involves a debt-for-equity swap. He declined to elaborate.