India’s Shree Renuka Sugars Ltd will try for a third time to sell sugar mills it owns in Brazil at an auction as part of a recovery plan in its in-court debt restructuring, according to court documents seen by Reuters. Renuka, which entered Brazil in 2010 and owns four sugar and ethanol plants in the country, presented a new plan to the court overseeing its bankruptcy protection case that proposed to sell the Revati or Madhu mills located in Sao Paulo state, or possibly both, Reuters reported.

The Argentine government rebuffed an investor proposal that it should request a flexible credit line from the International Monetary Fund to shore up the nation’s finances, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter, Bloomberg News reported. The proposal was discussed with Finance Minister Luis Caputo and his team the week of March 4 at private meetings on the sidelines of a larger gathering of about 50 investors in New York, according to the people, who asked not to be named because the talks were private.

Venezuela needs urgent debt relief and would look to give bondholders small payments in the short-term while pushing back maturities in order to allow the country to return to growth, according to the economic adviser of opposition candidate Henri Falcon, Bloomberg News reported. “Venezuela’s debt is in default and needs to be restructured in the nation’s best interests to get relief in the short term,” Francisco Rodriguez said in an interview on Thursday.

The world’s poorest countries are increasing their borrowing at a worrying pace and face the mounting risk of debt crises, the IMF has warned. Since 2013, the median ratio of public debt to gross domestic product in low-income countries has risen 13 percentage points to hit 47 per cent in 2017, according to new research by the IMF. The research found that 40 per cent of low-income developing countries face “significant debt-related challenges”, up from 21 per cent just five years ago, the Financial Times reported.

A magistrate for Brazil’s Superior Court of Justice has issued an injunction that hands telecommunications firm Oi SA at least a temporary victory over shareholder Pharol SGPS SA in an ongoing legal dispute, the company said on Wednesday. In a securities filing, Oi said that magistrate Marco Buzzi had “provisionally” awarded jurisdiction in the dispute to a commercial court in Rio de Janeiro over an arbitration body that Pharol had appealed to, Reuters reported.

Brazilian telecoms company Oi SA’s board has approved the terms of a debt-for-equity swap endorsed by creditors, even as a shareholder said on Tuesday it had won a partial injunction against the plan. In a Tuesday securities filing, Oi said the board approved the issuance of up to 1,756,054,163 new shares, corresponding to a maximum 12.29 billion reais ($3.81 billion). Under the deal, unsecured bondholders will be able to participate in the capitalization of Oi by swapping a portion of their debt for shares in the company, as agreed in a restructuring plan creditors approved in December.

Venezuela's foreign minister said on Tuesday that U.S. sanctions against the ailing oil nation are making foreign debt renegotiation more difficult and causing "panic" at global banks, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Venezuela is undergoing a major economic crisis, with millions suffering food and medicine shortages, and President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government is late in paying interest of some $1.9 billion on its debt. The U.S.

It’s been more than three months since the first of more than a dozen Venezuelan bonds was declared in default, and the arrears keep stacking up, Bloomberg News reported. Wall Street investors reluctant to give up hope they’ll eventually be paid are in limbo after the nation and its state oil company busted through grace periods on about $1.7 billion of debt payments, rating firms declared many securities in default and swaps that provide insurance against non-payment were triggered. For now, everyone is just waiting.

Emerging markets trade group EMTA has recommended that bonds issued by Venezuela’s state-owned oil firm PDVSA should be traded “flat”, or without accrued interest, the way bonds in default are typically traded. The move follows a similar advisory from EMTA on Venezuelan sovereign bonds last month and is likely to extinguish any lingering belief that Caracas might try and avoid a default by PDVSA -- the source of 90 percent of Venezuela’s export revenue -- to protect its key oil assets, Reuters reported.

A Rio de Janeiro judge decided on Wednesday that a shareholders meeting called by a major equity holder in debt-laden Brazilian telecoms carrier Oi SA will have no legal effect on the company’s in-court restructuring, Reuters reported. Responding to various petitions from Oi shareholders, Judge Ricardo Lafayette Campos also upheld a plan approved by bondholders in December and courts in January to take the company out of bankruptcy protection. “I maintain ... the decision that made the recovery plan official,” he wrote.