Mexico’s Interjet said on Monday it received a $150 million capital injection to help the company through a major restructuring in a bid to offset the crisis in the airline sector as the coronavirus pandemic choked global travel, Reuters reported. Interjet, one of Mexico’s three biggest airlines with a portfolio of more than 50 routes, announced restructure plans last month as local media speculated about the carrier’s financial health.
Mexico’s government on Thursday ruled out a financial rescue of the country’s airlines, which have been hammered by a sharp drop in global demand for travel and restrictions imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic, Reuters reported. Aeroméxico announced in late June the start of a restructuring process under Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the United States, while rival Interjet has also been struggling under the burden of coronavirus-imposed restrictions.
Petroleos Mexicanos’s nearly $105 billion in debt already makes it the biggest borrower of any oil company in the world. And it’s accruing more, Bloomberg News reported. Pemex, as the Mexican state oil company is known, is asking some of its contractors if they can wait until next year to be paid money that is owed to them now. Three contractors that are being asked to defer payment are waiting on $115 million in payouts, but the amount owed to companies across Pemex’s supply chain could easily total billions of dollars.
Mexico’s Aeromexico yesterday scheduled meetings with investors to discuss debt restructuring after becoming the third large Latin American carrier to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last week, Reuters reported. Management of the airline part-owned by Delta Air Lines Inc. proposed focusing on the modification of payment terms for stocks and other certificates in the meetings now planned for July 20, according to a statement sent to the Mexican stock exchange.
Mexican airline Aeromexico, which is in the process of analyzing its options for restructuring its short- and medium-term financial commitments, was thrown a $50 million financial lifeline on Monday by investment holding company Aimia Inc, Reuters reported. Aeromexico’s shares tanked earlier in June after a newspaper column said it was considering filing for bankruptcy, though the airline later clarified it had not decided whether to seek Chapter 11 protections in the United States.
Aeromexico is analyzing its options for an orderly restructuring of its short- and medium-term financial commitments, the Mexican airline said on Friday, adding that it had not decided whether to seek Chapter 11 protections in the United States, Reuters reported. Aeromexico shares fell more than 5% in early trading after a newspaper column said the Mexican airline was considering filing for bankruptcy.
A second wave of Covid-19 would deepen this year’s recession in Latin America’s three largest economies by more than 1 percentage point, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Bloomberg News reported. Argentina and Brazil would suffer the biggest hits, shrinking by 10% and 9.1%, respectively, while Mexico would contract by 8.6%, Paris-based OECD said in a report published on Wednesday. A possible second wave of the virus could come between October and November following the easing of containment measures currently in place, the organization said.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador is betting that a new trade agreement with the US and Canada will usher a flood of investment into Mexico that will help lift it out of the coronavirus crisis, the Financial Times reported. But instead of celebrating the launch of the USMCA on July 1 with champagne, US, Canadian and European companies are filing local lawsuits to protect their investments. They are also considering arbitration under the successor to the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) and other international treaties.
Struggling Mexican airline Interjet suffered a heavy blow on Wednesday when it was suspended from the clearing house membership of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) for failing to keep up with payments, Reuters reported. The Airlines Clearing House (ACH) said in a letter dated Wednesday the membership of ABC Aerolineas S.A. de C.V., which operates under the name Interjet, was suspended with “immediate effect” due to the “non-payment of a clearance balance”.
