Venezuela appeared to have made a crucial bond repayment in the nick of time on Wednesday but the chaos surrounding the instalment stirred nervousness that the crisis-ridden country might finally be running out of money ahead of another big debt payment due on Thursday, the Financial Times reported. The Latin American country and its state oil company PDVSA have failed to make several debt payments in recent weeks.
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The bond trustee for Venezuela’s state oil company is keeping investors in the dark about the status of a critical payment that was due Oct. 27, Bloomberg News reported. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, the trustee on the notes maturing in 2020, has been telling investors that it won’t provide any information about the status of their funds until it issues a statement as soon as today or tomorrow, according to people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the conversations were private.
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Investors are getting mixed signals as Venezuela stares down billions of dollars in debt obligations over the next few weeks, Bloomberg News reported. Although PDVSA said it paid an $842 million principal payment on its 2020 bonds due last Friday, the money has yet to materialize in the accounts of bondholders. Another $1.2 billion payment looms on Thursday. And to top it off, the clock is ticking on more than half a billion dollars in debt from the state oil firm and Nicolas Maduro’s government that are in a 30-day grace period.
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Venezuela’s state-run oil company said it transferred the funds to make an $842 million principal payment on its bonds due Friday, overcoming the first of many hurdles the country will face in coming days as it seeks to avoid sinking into default, Bloomberg News reported. The announcement spread a sense of relief to investors in the bond market, who drove up Venezuelan asset prices across the board Friday. A second big payment is due Nov. 2, and the country’s decision to disburse the cash for today’s payment indicates that it likely intends to meet that one too.
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Venezuela’s state oil company has a hefty payment due Friday and the lack of any signs or comments about the funds being transferred has the market in a late stage of panic, Bloomberg News reported. PDVSA’s dollar bonds tumbled more than four cents with yields on notes due 2020 jumping more than 2 percentage points to 17.3 percent. The probability of PDVSA defaulting on its debt over the next year has jumped to 79 percent with the odds over the next five years at 99 percent, according to credit default swap trading. Venezuela is already two weeks late on coupons for a slew of other bonds.
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The former chief executive officer of Venezuela’s state run-oil company said it will make debt payments this year and next, even as he acknowledged the crude producer is struggling with cash-flow and operational issues, Bloomberg News reported. The company has “all the resources to honor its liabilities,” Rafael Ramirez, who is now Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview in New York.
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Ever since the price of oil collapsed in mid-2014, there’s been a broad consensus among the bond-market crowd that Venezuela was going to default. Not immediately, they said, but at some point down the road. Three years on, that time may have arrived, Bloomberg News reported. On Friday, the government-run oil giant PDVSA owes $985 million. Six days later, it’s on the hook for another $1.2 billion. Not only is that a daunting sum for a country whose foreign-currency reserves recently dipped below $10 billion for the first time in 15 years, but it figures to be a logistical nightmare too.
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Venezuelan bonds tumbled after the government claimed a surprise victory in regional elections and the opposition cried fraud. The perceived foul play increases the risk of further sanctions against the oil producer. The extra yield investors demand to hold Venezuelan debt over U.S. Treasuries widened 116 basis points to 32.32 percentage points, the highest in the world, Bloomberg News reported. A dollar bond issued by state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA that matures in two weeks fell 1.6 cent to 92.3 cents on the dollar.
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Russia and Venezuela may sign an agreement on restructuring Venezuelan debt by the end of the year if terms drafted by their finance ministries are approved, said Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov. “In general, we worked out with the finance ministry such conditions,” Siluanov told reporters in Washington, where he attended the International Monetary Fund fall meeting, Bloomberg News reported.
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Investors are gaining confidence that Venezuela will make its next big bond payments. Notes from the state oil company that mature in November climbed to 94.5 cents on the dollar Wednesday, a three-year high, while amortizing bonds due in 2020 rose to their highest price since they were issued last year, Bloomberg News reported. There’s a $985 million payment due Oct. 27 for the 2020 bonds, and $1.2 billion due Nov. 2 on the securities maturing next month.
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