A Brazilian bankruptcy judge late on Tuesday granted a request by the country’s fourth-largest airline, Avianca Brasil, to suspend lawsuits seeking repossession of at least 14 of its aircraft, according to a court document, Reuters reported. Avianca Brasil filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, after aircraft lessors sued and won initial victories in seeking to repossess the planes. The airline has 494 million reais ($129 million) in debt, according to a court filing that is under seal but was seen by Reuters.
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Brazil’s fourth-largest airline, Avianca Brasil, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, saying its operations had been threatened by potential repossession of aircraft, which could prevent the carrier from continuing to operate, Reuters reported. The unlisted airline said in its bankruptcy filing that leasing companies seeking to take back some 30 percent of its all-Airbus fleet threatened its ability to fly some 77,000 passengers in December.
Venezuela is facing the possible unraveling of a pair of billion-dollar settlements aimed at protecting the cash-strapped country’s U.S.-based Citgo Petroleum Corp from seizure by creditors. A lawyer for Canadian mining company Crystallex International Corp said on Tuesday Venezuela had breached the $1.4 billion November agreement that resolved a long-running fight over an expropriated gold mine. Separately, Venezuela’s $1.3 billion settlement in October with Rusoro Mining of Vancouver, also over expropriated mining assets, has been upended by U.S.
Brazilian state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA plans to raise some $26.9 billion via asset sales and partnerships by 2023 while boosting investments on the front edge of an anticipated production boom in Brazil, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Petrobras intends to make $84.1 billion in investments from 2019 to 2023, above the $74.5 billion forecast in its 2018 to 2022 plan, it said in a five-year investment program unveiled on Wednesday morning.
Bondholders of Odebrecht SA’s builder unit won’t see any of the money the troubled company is getting from a long-delayed sale in Peru, one person with direct knowledge of the matter said. Of the $1.4 billion price tag of the Chaglla hydroelectric plant in 2017, Odebrecht will likely get about $640 million, Bloomberg News reported. Half of that will go to pay damages to the Peruvian government, Justice Minister Vicente Zeballos said last week. Almost all the rest will go to creditors of the project itself, the person said, asking not to be named because the matter isn’t public.
Cash-strapped Venezuela settled a $1.2 billion arbitration claim that will prevent a creditor from stripping away its crown jewel foreign asset, the U.S.-based Citgo Petroleum Corp refining business, according to Canadian court documents, Reuters reported. The deal with Crystallex International Corp suspends the Canadian mining company’s push for a court-ordered auction of control of Citgo as a way of collecting on an arbitration award against Venezuela that has grown to more than $1.4 billion with interest. Citgo is based in Houston, Texas.
Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht SA has hired investment bank Moelis & Co. and law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton to discuss restructuring of its debt with investors, the company said in a statement on Monday, Reuters reported. Odebrecht’s engineering unit OEC and its advisers will discuss with investors restructuring of $3 billion bonds issued by Odebrecht Finance Limited. The conglomerate decided not to pay $11.5 million in interest on the 2025 bonds after the end of the 30-day grace period, the statement added.
The cash-strapped construction unit of Odebrecht, the Brazilian group at the centre of a corruption scandal that has rocked Latin America, said Monday it will miss a debt payment, triggering a restructuring of billions in bonds, the Financial Times reported. The company said it would not pay an $11.5m coupon on its 2025 bond due on Monday “to preserve liquidity”.
Preliminary figures compiled by Venezuela’s central bank indicate that the crisis-wracked nation’s economy contracted 16.6 percent in 2017, according to two people with direct knowledge of the estimates, Bloomberg News reported. For the first time since 2016, the bank is preparing a raft of macroeconomic indicators for the International Monetary Fund to avoid sanctions including a possible expulsion from the lender. Bank technicians began working extended shifts and weekends earlier this month to deliver new growth and inflation data and meet a strict Nov.