South America

The thriving currency black market on postcard Florida Street in the commercial centre of Argentina’s capital is a result of strict foreign exchange controls introduced in 2011 to stem capital flight, the Financial Times reported. In the “caves”, dollars can be sold for close to double the official rate of 5.7 pesos. Argentina’s artificially overvalued currency is one of an array of economic problems facing Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, president.

Investors holding about $300 million of shipbuilder OSX Brasil SA's debt signed an agreement to protect their rights in case the company controlled by Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista is unable make bond payments, the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper reported on Thursday, Reuters reported. The accord was signed by seven large investment funds with about $200 million in OSX bonds and other investors holding about $100 million, Estado said, without naming a source. OSX has $500 million in international bonds outstanding, the paper said. OSX declined to comment.

Brazilian entrepreneur Eike Batista’s OGX Petroleo & Gas Participacoes SA is asking a group of investors for at least $250 million in fresh capital in an effort to avert bankruptcy, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg reported. The capital injection for OGX would be part of a restructuring in which Batista will ask bondholders to convert $3.6 billion of debt into OGX stock, diluting Batista in the company, said the people, asking not to be identified because the discussions are private.

Leaders of the world’s largest economies ratcheted up the pressure on tax avoidance by backing “an ambitious and comprehensive” plan to crack down on multinationals that shift profits into low-tax countries, the Irish Times reported. The G20 countries also stepped up the assault on evasion, with plans to exchange tax information automatically between themselves by the end of 2015 and calling “on all other jurisdictions to join us by the earliest possible date”.

Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista will ask creditors of his debt-strapped oil company OGX to become shareholders and inject new cash, in a last ditch attempt to avoid seeking bankruptcy protection, Folha de S.Paulo newspaper said on Thursday. The plan will be presented to bondholders of OGX Petróleo e Gás Participações SA next Tuesday in New York, Folha said, citing five people involved in the negotiations. However, an OGX spokeswoman told Reuters it was not true that the company had scheduled a meeting with bondholders for next week.

Robert Shiller, who predicted the collapse of the U.S. housing market, is warning that a bubble is emerging in Brazil at a time when a sluggish economy and persistent inflation are eroding investor confidence, Bloomberg reported. Since January 2008, home prices in Sao Paulo have soared 181 percent and jumped 225 percent in Rio de Janeiro, according to the FIPE Zap index. That’s as much as twice the increase in rent prices, signaling that the housing market has become overheated, according to Shiller, a Yale University professor who helped create the S&P/Case-Shiller Index of U.S.

Companies in Brazil, struggling with weak economic growth, rising borrowing costs and a currency slump, are likely to boost demand for advice on debt restructuring as early as next year, a partner at investment banking firm Virtus BR Partners said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. The newfound caution of private-sector lenders could make it harder for some companies to refinance existing loans or make new ones, said Eleazar de Carvalho, a senior partner at Virtus. He did not signal out specific sectors, but said refinancing talks between banks and borrowers are starting.

Banks face being hit with a new set of international capital rules aimed at forcing bondholders rather than taxpayers to bail out failing institutions, the Financial Times reported. Global regulators are seeking support from world leaders to draw up proposals to force banks to hold a minimum amount of debt that can be “bailed in” if a bank collapses.

The flagship oil company controlled by Brazilian businessman Eike Batista plans to present a proposal to restructure its debts in two weeks' time, in which bonds would be swapped for shares and the firm would try to raise fresh capital, according to a person familiar with the transaction, The Wall Street Journal reported. The fortunes of OGX Petróleo e Gás Participações SA, the linchpin in Mr. Batista's sprawling industrial empire, collapsed after its only operating oil field failed to live up to expectations when it began production in mid-2012.

Argentina's government will reopen a 2005 debt swap for a second time after an adverse ruling in a New York court last week, The Wall Street Journal reported. The move, unveiled by President Cristina Kirchner Monday, comes as the government deals with the fallout from a U.S court decision last week that ordered Argentina to pay a group of so-called holdout bondholders 100% of the roughly $1.33 billion they are owed in principal and accrued interest. The Kirchner administration has refused to pay the holdouts, saying they don't deserve 100% of what they are owed under U.S. law.