Fitch Downgrades Venezuela’s FertiNitro Notes

Fitch Ratings downgraded Venezuelan fertilizer producer FertiNitro Finance’s 8.29% secured bonds due 2020 to CCC from B- to reflect recent government legislation. A March Decree Law obliges producers to direct their output from global export markets to the domestic market, where prices are subject to government control. According to Gersan Zurita, a senior director and lead oil and gas analyst for Latin America in Fitch’s Project Finance Group, “the decree-law is likely to cause project revenues to decline substantially.”