Colombia

Latin America’s luck will change. Pandemic lockdowns caused more regional corporations to default between early May and June. But yield-starved investors will ignore some of these risks, Reuters reported. There’s a lot of bad news to ignore. The International Monetary Fund expects Latin American and Caribbean economies to contract by more than 8% in 2020, the most of any region, with only a 3.6% improvement in 2021. And non-financial companies with foreign debt have seen revenue dented by a combined $200 billion due to the pandemic, Fitch Ratings estimates.

Avianca Holdings said on Thursday it has won the support of a large number of institutional investors and existing lenders, meaning it will no longer need the Colombian government’s participation as part of its restructuring process, Reuters reported. Avianca, Latin America’s second-largest airline, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in New York in May. A U.S. bankruptcy court approved a proposed financing plan of over $2 billion to help the carrier exit Chapter 11 restructuring in October. The airline was expecting $370 million in credit from the Colombian government.

During a pandemic that has wreaked havoc with global travel, Enrique Beltranena is something of a rarity: a happy airline boss. Volaris, his Mexican low-cost airline, has added, not cut, routes during the crisis, has a healthy balance sheet and is “cautiously optimistic” in its outlook, he said.

Colombia will bring home the $5.3 billion from its International Monetary Fund loan at a gradual pace to avoid causing turbulence in currency markets, deputy Finance Minister Juan Pablo Zarate said, Bloomberg News reported. This cautious approach also improves the chances of the nation getting a more favorable exchange rate, Zarate said in a video interview on Thursday. Colombia will be the first country to tap an IMF flexible credit line, a pre-approved source of funding that comes with no conditions on how it’s spent.

Airline Avianca Holdings came under broad criticism in Colombia for paying its top two executives $6 million in bonuses in May, at a time when the carrier had furloughed most of its employees without pay and was preparing a bankruptcy filing, Reuters reported. According to bankruptcy court documents submitted by Avianca itself, the airline paid Chief Executive Anco van der Werff $3.7 million and paid Chief Financial Officer Adrian Neuhauser $2.8 million on May 6. Five days later, the airline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S.

Avianca Holdings SA, one of Latin America’s largest airlines, lined up a $2 billion bankruptcy-loan package to finance its stay in chapter 11 from a group of investors and lenders including United Airlines Inc. and Chairman Roberto Kriete, The Wall Street Journal reported. Since filing for bankruptcy in May after the coronavirus pandemic curtailed flying, Avianca has been working to raise capital to stay in business as air travel remains deeply depressed world-wide.

Avianca Holdings on Tuesday said it had appealed a court order that last week banned Colombia’s government from providing the troubled airline with a $370 million loan to finance part of its bankruptcy restructuring, Reuters reported. The airline, which filed for bankruptcy in May due to the coronavirus pandemic’s effect on travel, said that without the loan, keeping the company afloat would become “untenable.” The loan is part of a $2 billion financing package that is key to the carrier exiting bankruptcy protection.

A Colombian court temporarily blocked a $370 million government loan to Avianca Holdings SA after a citizen expressed concern about a lack of guarantees, Bloomberg News reported. The Cundinamarca Administrative Tribunal granted an injunction to suspend disbursement after a motion filed by a citizen against the Finance Ministry, the presidency and the airline said the loan, part of its debtor-in-possession financing, may become a “threat” to collective rights and public worth, according to a copy of the ruling sent by court.

Colombia’s disaster fund will lend as much as $370 million to Avianca Holdings SA to help with its restructuring after a halt in travel during the Covid-19 pandemic forced the company into bankruptcy, the country’s finance ministry said in a statement, Bloomberg News reported. The emergency mitigation fund’s committee approved the government-backed loan, due November 2021, under the framework of debtor-in-possession financing the company is seeking in its U.S. bankruptcy court case, the ministry said in a statement on Friday.