Category: Corporate & Sovereign Strategy

Mexican satellite operator Satélites Mexicanos (SatMex), has restructured its $800 million debt, of which almost $523 million is in default. The agreement, signed on Friday, ends two years of negotiations with creditors and includes the issuance of new first priority senior secured notes for current FRN holders and new second priority senior secured notes for current high-yield bond holders.

Brazilian logistics company VarigLog Monday launched a US$350 million bid for its former parent company, airline Varig. Brazil’s flagship airline is operating under bankruptcy protection after struggling for years while losing market share to smaller and more nimble operators. Late last year creditors, including General Electric and Boeing, rejected an offer from local investment group Docas Investimentos. Varig sold off VarigLog in January for US$46 million.

Metrogas, which supplies a quarter of Argentina’s natural gas, said it reached agreement with creditors to exchange US$437 million in debt, staving off bankruptcy. The company defaulted on its debt in 2002 amidst an economic crisis and government-imposed price controls. Creditors can choose between 75% of the face value of the debt or swap it for notes that come due in 2014. More than 90% of creditors approved the plan.

BBVA Colombia, a subsidiary of Spanish bank BBVA, has approved a $178 million bond offering as part of its restructuring process to absorb local bank Granahorrar. BBVA bought state-owned Granahorrar last October for $430 million, making it the largest local purchase ever by a foreign financial institution.

Argentine’s largest cement producer, Loma Negra, will cancel all its negotiable notes worth $30.2 million on March 6 as part of its debt restructuring. In January the company bought back $233.8 million of its bonds. The cement producer will also issue $100 million of new notes as part of its refinancing strategy. Last year Loma Negra was taken over by Brazilian group Camargo Correa in a deal worth just over $1 billion.

Medellín-based Bancolombia, Colombia’s largest private-sector bank, has bought 98.57% of Comercia, the country’s eighth-largest factoring company, for $19.2 million. The purchase is part of the restructuring process currently underway at Colombian conglomerate Grupo Empresarial Antioqueno (GEA), owner of both Bancolombia and Comercia. Bancolombia bought the majority stake from textile company Fabricato-Tejicondor, also owned by GEA. In December Bancolombia created Latin America’s third-largest leasing company when it merged Leasing Colombia and Suleasing.

Newly appointed Bolivian hydrocarbons minister, Andres Soliz Rada, has said that he will be overseeing the restructuring of the country’s energy sector. Bolivia has Latin America’s second largest natural gas reserves but wants to see these reserves registered as national property and not belonging to the foreign companies that exploit them. Currently, the largest part of the reserves is listed in New York. The country’s new government has pledged to reverse the situation and will be renegotiating all energy contracts with foreign companies as well as strengthening the state oil company YPFB. It has reassured foreign companies that it will not be nationalizing industrial assets but rather reclaiming its own natural resources.

Mexican cell phone company Iusacell has finally reached an agreement with creditors to restructure $750 million of debt following protracted negotiations. The first phase of the deal will be a debt swap offer in March to exchange $175 million worth of bonds maturing in 2006 for new ones due in 2013. The agreement means that Iusacell will avoid paying $150 million of interest due on the 2006 bonds.