Sete Brasil Participações SA presented a draft reorganization plan on Friday that includes seeking up to $5 billion in funding and downsizing business, three months after the Brazilian rig leaser sought court protection against 18 billion reais ($5.7 billion) in looming debt payments. Rio de Janeiro-based Sete Brasil is asking creditors, which include some of the world's leading shipbuilders and Brazil's largest lenders, to endorse a plan to help build between eight and 12 rigs, down from an original target of 28, Chief Executive Officer Luiz Eduardo Carneiro said in an interview.

With Venezuela's economy veering into depression and Venezuelans scrambling to find basic goods, the government's decision to keep servicing the country’s $68bn in external bonds has been called everything from “crazy” to “a crime against humanity.” Putting bondholders above Venezuelans, these critics argue, is just morally wrong, Bloomberg News reported. But such charged rhetoric is no substitute for a sober analysis of Venezuela's debt predicament. Seen in that light, the wisdom of defaulting is less clear cut.

Oi SA is expected to burn less cash this quarter thanks to a June petition to win court protection from creditors, which is temporarily sparing Brazil's largest fixed-line phone carrier from paying debts, executives said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Chief Executive Officer Marco Schroeder told analysts on a conference call that planned changes in industry rules under discussion in Congress could help improve the outlook for Oi's operations. The company released weak quarterly results earlier on Thursday.

Grupo Bom Jesus, a Brazilian grain producer that filed for bankruptcy protection in May, has offered creditors stakes in a farm that could be later sold, in an effort to restructure 2.6 billion reais ($826 million) in debt, Reuters reported. According to documents that Bom Jesus filed in a court in the midwestern town of Rondonópolis, one part of the plan calls for an auction of farms and a grains trading subsidiary to raise cash. The company plans to continue operations while negotiating the debt restructuring.

Phone carrier Oi SA, which filed in June for Brazil's largest ever in-court reorganization, will present a plan to overhaul business and repay creditors later this month or by early September, Chief Executive Officer Marco Schroeder said on Wednesday. Schroeder told reporters in Rio de Janeiro, where Brazil's largest fixed-line phone operator is based, that suppliers and creditors will be offered terms of the business reorganization plan, which involves a debt-for-equity swap. He declined to elaborate.

Société Mondiale, a minority shareholder of Brazilian telephone company Oi SA, said on Monday it would formally call a shareholders' meeting next month to discuss changes to the company's board of directors, according to a statement sent to Reuters. The activist investor, which began to acquire Oi stock around the time of the company's bankruptcy filing on June 20, is proposing the replacement of six members of Oi's board, including five appointed by Oi's majority owner Pharol SGPS SA. The meeting should take place on Sept. 8, Société Mondiale said in the statement.

The board of Brazilian telephone operator Oi SA has referred to a bankruptcy judge an activist investor's request for legal action against company managers, its second straight bid to thwart the investor's moves, according to a securities filing late Wednesday. In the filing, Oi's board referred a decision on activist investor Société Mondiale's late July request for a shareholders meeting to approve an arbitration claim against controlling shareholder Pharol to the Rio de Janeiro judge overseeing the company's bankruptcy.

A Brazilian activist investor with a stake in bankrupt telecom provider Oi SA has requested a meeting with shareholders to discuss allegations that the carrier's majority owner Pharol SGPS SA committed improprieties, according to a securities filing made late on Friday. Société Mondiale, which holds 7 percent of Oi's voting shares, proposed that the meeting be called in eight days, the filing showed. Oi said in a statement on Monday its board would analyze Société's request, without giving a date for the meeting.

The judge overseeing the bankruptcy protection of Brazilian phone carrier Oi SA could force the company to call a shareholder vote on proposed changes to its board as soon as next week, according to a lawyer for an activist shareholder, Reuters reported. The ruling should come after the judge hears opinions from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the in-court administrator in Oi's bankruptcy, and the public prosecutor's office, João Mendes de Oliveira Castro, legal advisor to Oi's minority shareholder Société Mondiale, said in a phone interview on Thursday.

Brazilian phone carrier Oi SA wants creditors to cut debt by almost two-thirds and inject $1 billion in fresh cash to exit bankruptcy protection, O Globo newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter, Reuters reported. Under terms of an accord that is under discussion between Oi bondholders represented by investment-banking firm Moelis & Co, and shareholders and management of Brazil's No. 4 wireless carrier, total debt would be reduced to about 25 billion reais ($7.6 billion) from the current 65.4 billion reais, Globo said, citing the source.