The Province of Buenos Aires improved the terms it’s offering bondholders if they agree to accept delayed payments, an about-face from the cash-strapped government after its first overture failed to attract sufficient support, Bloomberg News reported. In exchange for pushing back the deadline on a $250 million principal payment, investors would receive an extra $7.2 million in interest, according to the offer revealed Monday. Previously, officials were asking creditors to sign off on the three-month delay without any additional compensation.

Dennis Hranitzky, an attorney who helped hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer win a 15-year bond battle against Argentina, is gearing up for a potential rematch against the South American nation, Bloomberg News reported. The veteran restructuring lawyer, who joined Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan this week, said he is building up an Argentina bondholder group that now totals about 20 funds. The creditors are focused on notes that were part of the nation’s 2005 and 2010 debt exchanges.

Argentina’s top exporter of processed soy, Vicentin, is in talks over a potential takeover deal with firms including European grains giant Glencore to help resolve a debt crisis, according to two sources close to the negotiations, Reuters reported. The near 90-year-old firm, which defaulted on payments to suppliers late last year, has also told grains farmers it owes money to that it will make a debt restructuring offer in the days ahead, the sources said on Friday.

A big question facing Alberto Fernández, Argentina’s new president, is what to do with the country’s debt, the Financial Times reported. Gross government debt is equal to 93 per cent of GDP, its highest level since the 2004 restructuring, while the price of most Argentine sovereign bonds has fallen to less than 50 cents on the dollar. To some, these numbers suggest an over-indebted economy requiring an aggressive debt restructuring imposing significant haircuts on creditors to restore debt sustainability and economic growth. But is this the correct way to look at it? I think not.

Bondholders have balked at a plea to accept late payment on debt backed by the province of Buenos Aires, in a stand-off that could complicate already delicate negotiations over Argentina’s central government debt, the Financial Times reported. Buenos Aires province’s bonds fell sharply on Wednesday after a group of investors criticised an attempt to secure their approval to postpone a $250m debt payment coming due on January 26.

Swedish oil refiner Nynas, which is owned by Venezuela’s state-run PDVSA and Finland’s Neste Oil, said on Tuesday it planned to reorganize its business in an attempt to disentangle itself from U.S. sanctions imposed on Venezuela, Reuters reported. Nynas said the proposed changes to its ownership structure, backed by both PDVSA and Neste Oil, were filed with the United States’ Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on January 17.

Argentina will send a bill to Congress on Tuesday outlining a plan to address the debt crisis and make payments “sustainable,” Economy Minister Martin Guzman said, Bloomberg News reported. South America’s second-largest economy isn’t able to pay its debt under current conditions and will look to either alter maturity dates, interest rates or outstanding capital amounts, Guzman said. Exact details of the proposal will have to wait, he said, though the bill will cover foreign law bonds as well.

Argentina’s Chubut province bonds plunged to the lowest since November after local officials said they wanted to renegotiate the debt, Bloomberg News reported. The bonds due 2026 slid as much as 8 cents to 63.3 cents on the dollar after its economy minister Oscar Antonena proposed reducing coupons and suspending principal payments for four years on $650 million of the overseas bonds. Antonena told local reporters that the province is sending the proposal to its local legislature along with a fiscal readjustment plan that would shrink its bloated public sector.

Argentina’s inflation rate hit 53.8 per cent in 2019, climbing to its highest level in almost three decades and underlining the scale of the challenges facing the embattled country’s new leftist president, Alberto Fernández, the Financial Times reported. The national statistics agency announced on Wednesday that prices rose 3.7 per cent in December after renewed currency volatility ahead of elections last year, confirming Argentina’s place among the top five countries with the highest inflation rates in the world — behind Venezuela, Zimbabwe, South Sudan and Sudan.&nbs

Ecuador is preparing to sell $400 million in bonds backed by the Inter-American Development Bank to fund the country’s housing program, according to a person with direct knowledge of the transaction, Bloomberg News reported. The so-called “social bond” will be offered to investors this week, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. The IADB would pay bondholders $300 million in the event of a default, the person added.