Brazil

OSX Brasil SA bank creditors are considering taking possession of two vessels used as collateral on loans to Eike Batista’s shipbuilding company, according to six people with direct knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg reported. Banks are talking to advisers and OSX officials to evaluate whether they should execute guarantees if the oil-producing sister company goes into default, which would trigger cross-default clauses on OSX debt, said the people, asking not to be named as discussions are private.

Brazilian oil producer OGX Petróleo e Gas Participações SA is meeting with U.S. creditors in New York on Monday in a bid to jump-start rescue talks while banks scamper to arrange an emergency loan for the company if no deal is reached, sources with knowledge of the situation told Reuters. Creditors were set to meet with a new advisory team for controlling shareholder Eike Batista aimed at averting a bankruptcy filing that could come as soon as this month, the sources said. OGX said last week that management is considering all measures to protect assets and stay in business.

OGX Petroleo & Gas Participacoes SA, the oil company controlled by former billionaire Eike Batista, is considering filing for bankruptcy protection in about a month, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg reported. The filing would be done in Rio de Janeiro, said the people, asking not to be identified as discussions are private. While Batista is negotiating with creditors to avoid the same process for shipbuilder OSX Brasil SA, the most likely outcome is that both companies will seek legal protection, they said.

Brazilian oil producer OGX Petróleo e Gas Participações SA is on track to forego a $44.5 million interest payment due on Tuesday, two sources with knowledge of the plans said, moving the company closer to the largest Latin American corporate debt default ever, Reuters reported. Should the company decide to miss the coupon payment, an announcement will be made within a few days, said one of the sources. The other said OGX wants to use a 30-day grace period that starts when the company misses the payment to conclude debt restructuring talks with bondholders.

OGX Petróleo e Gás SA and OSX Brasil SA, the oil company and the shipbuilder controlled by Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista, will seek court protection within a couple of weeks, Veja magazine reported on Saturday without saying how it obtained the information, Reuters reported. Efforts to reach spokeswomen at OGX and EBX, the parent company of Batista's crumbling empire, were unsuccessful. A spokeswoman at OSX did not have an immediate comment on the report.

Bermuda's Supreme Court ruled for the liquidation of Brazilian private-equity firm Laep Investments Ltd, in response to a reuqest by an investment fund, according to a securities filing on Wednesday, Reuters reported. Laep, which is based in Bermuda but mostly operated from its offices in São Paulo, has been under strain in recent years after some of its main investments - including milk producer LBR Lácteos do Brasil SA and high-end luxury retailer Daslú - failed to produce the expected returns.

Investors holding about $300 million of shipbuilder OSX Brasil SA's debt signed an agreement to protect their rights in case the company controlled by Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista is unable make bond payments, the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper reported on Thursday, Reuters reported. The accord was signed by seven large investment funds with about $200 million in OSX bonds and other investors holding about $100 million, Estado said, without naming a source. OSX has $500 million in international bonds outstanding, the paper said. OSX declined to comment.

Brazilian entrepreneur Eike Batista’s OGX Petroleo & Gas Participacoes SA is asking a group of investors for at least $250 million in fresh capital in an effort to avert bankruptcy, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg reported. The capital injection for OGX would be part of a restructuring in which Batista will ask bondholders to convert $3.6 billion of debt into OGX stock, diluting Batista in the company, said the people, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.

Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista will ask creditors of his debt-strapped oil company OGX to become shareholders and inject new cash, in a last ditch attempt to avoid seeking bankruptcy protection, Folha de S.Paulo newspaper said on Thursday. The plan will be presented to bondholders of OGX Petróleo e Gás Participações SA next Tuesday in New York, Folha said, citing five people involved in the negotiations. However, an OGX spokeswoman told Reuters it was not true that the company had scheduled a meeting with bondholders for next week.

Robert Shiller, who predicted the collapse of the U.S. housing market, is warning that a bubble is emerging in Brazil at a time when a sluggish economy and persistent inflation are eroding investor confidence, Bloomberg reported. Since January 2008, home prices in Sao Paulo have soared 181 percent and jumped 225 percent in Rio de Janeiro, according to the FIPE Zap index. That’s as much as twice the increase in rent prices, signaling that the housing market has become overheated, according to Shiller, a Yale University professor who helped create the S&P/Case-Shiller Index of U.S.