Venezuela’s state-run oil company is preparing to make a $949 million bond payment that’s due Oct. 29, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. Petroleos de Venezuela SA’s plan to make the coupon and partial principal repayment on the 2020 notes would mark a rare exception for Nicolas Maduro’s government, which has racked up nearly $7 billion in defaulted debt to investors, Bloomberg News reported. This bond is backed by a majority stake in Citgo Holding Inc., meaning a non-payment would allow bondholders to lay claim to the crown jewel of Venezuela’s U.S. assets.
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Cardboard box-maker Smurfit Kappa has decided to deconsolidate its troubled Venezuelan operations from its balance sheet, after losing control of the unit to the local government, which will result in the writedown of its €60 million of net assets, The Irish Times reported. The move comes a month after the Caracas government decided to seize Smurfit Kappa Carton de Venezuela (SKCV) for 90 days amid complaints about prices that the company was charging for its products in an alleged abuse of its dominant market position – at a time when the country is grappling with hyperinflation.
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China agreed to several small oil deals with Venezuela this week but gave no public confirmation that it would extend more loans to the cash-strapped country during a rare visit by President Nicolás Maduro to Beijing. Venezuela faces a stiff payments schedule over the next two months of about $2bn to bondholders, some of whom have debt secured against US-based refiner Citgo, and in compensation to western oil companies for past nationalisations in Venezuela.
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A former Swiss banker has pleaded guilty in Miami federal court to helping launder $1.2 billion of money embezzled from Venezuela’s bankrupt state oil company in a scheme that involved close relatives of a Venezuelan official, The Wall Street Journal reported. People familiar with the case say that official is President Nicolás Maduro. Matthias Krull, a 44-years-old Panama-based former Swiss bank executive, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering on Wednesday, the Justice Department said. As part of his plea, Mr.
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Smurfit Kappa has defended itself after the Venezuelan government took temporary control of the Irish cardboard boxmaker’s subsidiary in the South American country, which is in economic freefall and recording hyperinflation, The Irish Times reported. Local reports have said that the government seized Smurfit Kappa Carton de Venezuela for three months, amid complaints about prices that the company is charging for packaging products in an alleged abuse of its dominant market position.
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Venezuela’s epic 95 percent currency devaluation was in part an attempt, it appeared, to squash the black market where most people have bought and sold dollars for years, Bloomberg News reported. Those illusions were dashed quickly, though. Within hours of the financial system re-opening this week, black market quotes for the bolivar were already flying around. Some quoted it at 65 bolivars per dollar. Others had it as high as 100 bolivars -- well above the new, official exchange rate of 60 per dollar that President Nicolas Maduro set Friday night.
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Hundreds of Venezuelans, some of whom walked 900 miles to escape economic disaster back home, saw their journeys abruptly halted this weekend on a frigid, remote border with Ecuador, The Wall Street Journal reported. Like other Latin American countries hosting thousands of fleeing Venezuelans, Ecuador suddenly erected a new entry barrier on Saturday requiring in this case passports rather than the national I.D. cards they accepted before.
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Venezuela’s debt crisis passed a new milestone as the government missed a principal payment on one of its bonds for the first time this week, boosting arrears on international securities to $6.1 billion, Bloomberg News reported. It was hardly a surprise for investors, who have watched the value of their securities plummet since President Nicolas Maduro announced in November that he would seek to restructure the country’s debt in the midst of an economic crisis.
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Venezuela's president Nicolas Maduro announced on Friday a single exchange rate pegged to his socialist government’s petro cryptocurrency, effectively devaluing by 96 percent in a move economists said would fan hyperinflation in the chaotic country, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. In one of the biggest economic overhauls of Maduro's five-year government, the former bus driver and union leader also said he would hike the minimum wage by over 3,000 percent, boost the corporate tax rate, and increase highly-subsidized gas prices in coming weeks.
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As Venezuela and its state-owned oil firm PDVSA lurch from crisis to crisis, defaulted creditors are jockeying for position to ensure they are among the first to receive cash when payday eventually comes, the Financial Times reported. The Opec country is essentially bankrupt and creditors are increasingly chasing its oil assets with their biggest target being Citgo, the Houston-based oil refiner that processes Venezuelan crude oil and is estimated to be worth roughly $4bn. Next in their sights is seizing Venezuelan oil cargoes at sea, as US hedge fund Elliott Management did
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