Category: Corporate & Sovereign Strategy

AES Hits Second Default in Brazil The Brazilian subsidiary of global power company AES Corp. in late February defaulted on a $330 million payment due to the government’s BNDES development […]

Few Brazilian companies foresaw the severity of the credit crunch in 2002. Some managed to refinance their obligations in time, many others are fighting to avoid a debt restructuring. Last […]

Globopar Defaults Globopar, the financial arm of Brazilian media conglomerate, Organizações Globo, has defaulted on $1.5 billion in debt, because of Brazil’s falling currency and a stagnant advertising market. Rio […]

Another Argentine Default Argentina defaulted on a World Bank loan in November when it failed to make the full $805 million payment originally due October 15. Instead, the government made an […]

Ecuador’s troubled banks helped precipitate the country’s financial problems in 1999 when the government defaulted on more than $6 billion of international bonds. In the aftermath, nearly all of what […]

The Argentine government’s debt default, followed by
trouble in other deeply indebted countries, has made the debate over how to handle sovereign debt crises one of the most important topics in the world capital markets. Arnold & Porter’s Whitney Debevoise describes how the official sector, investors have positioned themselves on the statutory and contractual approaches. In the end, both will require adjustments.

With better than expected default rates and improving ratings, emerging market bonds – including those from Latin America – deserve a serious look from the collateralized debt obligation marketplace.

Several countries in Latin America have modernized their corporate bankruptcy proceedings. But it is not yet clear the extent to which the reforms have established the flexibility needed to resolve complex default cases.