Country Update
December 07, 2021- Albania
- Angola
- Argentina
- Armenia
- Aruba
- Azerbaijan
- Bahamas
- Bahrain
- Barbados
- Belarus
- Belize
- Bolivia
- Brazil
- Bulgaria
- Cameroon
- Chile
- China
- Colombia
- Costa Rica
- Croatia
- Cyprus
- Czech Republic
- Dominican Republic
- Ecuador
- Egypt
- El Salvador
- Ethiopia
- Gabon
- Georgia
- Ghana
- Grenada
- Guatemala
- Honduras
- Hungary
- India
- Indonesia
- Iraq
- Israel
- Ivory Coast
- Jamaica
- Jordan
- Kazakhstan
- Kenya
- Kuwait
- Latvia
- Lebanon
- Lithuania
- Macedonia
- Malaysia
- Mexico
- Mongolia
- Montenegro
- Morocco
- Mozambique
- Namibia
- Nigeria
- Oman
- Pakistan
- Panama
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Philippines
- Poland
- Qatar
- Romania
- Russia
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Serbia
- South Africa
- South Korea
- Sri Lanka
- Suriname
- Trinidad And Tobago
- Turkey
- UAE
- Ukraine
- Uruguay
- Venezuela
- Vietnam
- Zambia
Market Prices
venezuela sovereign| Security | Bid | Ask | Yield | Spread | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VENZ 13.625 08/15/18 | 8.00 | 8.50 | 133.62 | 0 | +0 | 2018-08-15 |
| VENZ 13 5/8 08/15/18 | 10.00 | 10.55 | 130.97 | 0 | +0 | 2018-08-15 |
| VENZ 7 12/01/18 | 10.55 | 11.05 | 64.73 | 0 | +0 | 2018-12-01 |
| VENZ 7 3/4 10/13/19 | 9.85 | 10.40 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2019-10-13 |
| VENZ 0 PERP CORP | 3.50 | 2.75 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2020-04-15 |
| VENZ 6 12/09/20 | 8.00 | 8.50 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2020-12-09 |
| VENZ 12 3/4 08/23/22 | 10.80 | 11.35 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2022-08-23 |
| VENZ 9 05/07/23 | 9.80 | 10.35 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2023-05-07 |
| VENZ 8 1/4 10/13/24 | 9.80 | 10.35 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2024-10-13 |
| VENZ 7.65 04/21/25 | 9.50 | 10.00 | 114.63 | 0 | +0 | 2025-04-21 |
| VENZ 11 3/4 10/21/26 | 10.60 | 11.15 | 109.57 | 0 | +0 | 2026-10-21 |
| VENZ 9 1/4 09/15/27 | 9.80 | 10.35 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2027-09-15 |
| VENZ 9 1/4 05/07/28 | 10.30 | 10.85 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2028-05-07 |
| VENZ 11.95 08/05/31 | 10.55 | 11.10 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2031-08-05 |
| VENZ 9 3/8 01/13/34 | 9.35 | 9.90 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2034-01-13 |
| VENZ 7 03/31/38 | 8.00 | 10.00 | 0.00 | 0 | +0 | 2038-03-31 |
Market Map
venezuela sovereignYield Curve
venezuelaMarket History
Market Intelligence
venezuelaPartial results for the November 21 elections show the opposition won 3 of 22 governorships and either 40 or 117 of the 322 mayorships already called.
On aggregate, Chavismo received 3.6 mn votes (45.3%), the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) 1.9 mn (24.5%), Fuerza Vecinal 456 thousand (5.8%) and Alianza Democrática 1.3 mn (15.7%).
The results will allow emerging moderate leaders, especially Manuel Rosales, to press for influence within the opposition, but we do not believe that will affect the timing or probability of a regime change.
Our base-case scenario remains that the Mexico talks will resume in 1Q22, but we...
Two key dates loom large over Venezuela’s interim government: the regional and local elections scheduled for November 21, and the expiration of Juan Guaidó’s legal mandate on January 5.
The regional and local elections look like a non-event to us we don’t expect them to change the current status quo in any way.
Voluntad Popular’s confrontation with one of its key partners in the G4 coalition, Primero Justicia, has made a renovation of Guaidó’s mandate unlikely.
Mexico talks could prove more relevant than the elections, but Maduro negotiates from a position of strength and doesn&...
The value of oil exports is 55.2% up YoY in the first 9 months of 2021 and would close 57.7% up for the full year if current trends hold.
Similarly, our data for imports shows a 20.3% YoY increase in the first 7 months of the year and would close the year 13.5% up if current levels hold stable.
Other indicators, including the Venezuelan Finance Observatory (OVF)’s Monthly Index of Economic Activity, various sectorial surveys, and Google Mobility data, also point at growth.
Our broad-based analysis of available economic data leads us to revise our GDP growth forecast for 2021 to 6.2%, from the previous 2.0%.
Gr...
There are 20 cases concerning Venezuelan defaulted debt in NY courts. Litigation for PDVSA debt has been limited: 3 cases involve the company’s promissory notes, 2 the PDVSA 20 collateral and only 3 involve other PDVSA bonds. There are 13 cases involving sovereign bonds.
The most litigated bonds so far are VENZ 25 (28.7% of the bond’s total outstanding), VENZ 20 (25.9%), and VENZ 18O (21.4%).
The 6 cases that have already concluded favorably to the bondholders have taken an average 16 months from initial complaint to final judgment.
The 11 ongoing cases have also taken 16 months on average, so far. In several,...
The Dominican government acquired PDVSA’s 49% share in joint-venture REFIDOMSA in a debt-for-equity swap valued at USD 88 mn.
If the bonds were received at market value by the Venezuelan government, it could have reduced its total debt by as much as USD 3.3 bn.
On the other hand, if the bonds were received at face value, it could have sold its stake in REFIDOMSA for as little as USD 7.5 mn.
Neither scenario looks reasonable, and we would expect the valuation to lie somewhere in between both cases.
We don’t think this operation can be scaled-up much more, as the stock of available external assets is limit...
Several developments in the last few weeks indicate that the race for Venezuelan assets abroad is heating up.
Banco San Juan Internacional (BSJI) recently received authorization from a Portuguese court and an OFAC license to seize funds from an account at Novo Banco, which holds around USD 1.8 bn.
ConocoPhillips is also trying to seize funds held by the Jamaican government in escrow accounts to the name of PDVSA, which could amount to USD 115 mn.
US courts are allowing FARC victims to seize Venezuelan government assets without requiring an OFAC license. The efforts have been very successful, and public documents have iden...
Over the past few days, we’ve seen two significant new concessions aimed at facilitating the participation of opposition parties in the upcoming November 21 elections.
On Monday, Maduro announced the elimination of “regional protectors,” which oversee the local and regional governments in opposition-controlled states and municipalities.
Then the recently designated CNE board lifted the ban on the MUD political coalition party used by the opposition to group their candidates under a single umbrella for elections.
These developments add to a June 25 joint statement by the US, EU, and Canada, which calls fo...
Today, Bloomberg released a rare interview with Venezuela’s de facto President Nicolás Maduro, alongside separate conversations with opposition leaders Juan Guaidó and Henrique Capriles. We provide a summary of each interviewee’s perspective and brief commentary.
Maduro paints his administration as a victim of US policy while reasserting his goodwill towards investors and creditors. Unsurprisingly, he seeks to rally lobbying efforts by creditors and oil companies to end the sanctions regime.
Juan Guaidó comes off as not being in control, both regarding US sanctions and the potential consequences...
Recent concessions by Maduro, including a new CNE, rekindled hope of a change in the stagnant status quo, especially given a moderate positive reaction from international players.
Nonetheless, Guaidó’s core demand is a clear schedule for short-term presidential and legislative elections, to which Maduro is extremely unlikely to agree.
The new CNE is regarded as a ploy to further divide the opposition. Guaidó rejected its designation and continues to antagonize alternative leaders who deem it a political victory.
In our view, the dynamics of the political stalemate haven’t changed since our last r...
There is a growing rift within the opposition coalition about the strategy going forward. An increasing number of politicians want to participate in regional elections, but Guaidó himself still refuses to do so.
Regardless of the participation, we see little chance of a regime change over the next 4 years.
We do think that there will be a relaxation of economic sanctions in the mid-term, but not without some concessions from Maduro.
In our view, any proposal to restructure Venezuelan debt in the short-term is fantasy, but we do think the US could lift the restriction on the trading of bonds in the secondary market....
Commodity prices have performed spectacularly after the chaos of March 2020: Precious metals (+ 25%), Gas (+ 66%), Oil (+ 254%), Copper (+ 93%) and Coal (+ 74%)
Some short-term conditions such as the stimulus packages of the main economies, inflationary risks and the weakness of the dollar promote a rise in real assets
Increased industrialization in India and the maintenance of government spending at high levels, support the boom in the long term
For now we know that there is a rise in prices, but there is no certainty that there will be a supercycle of several years because all the long-term factors are variable
Of...
In 2021, we expect the Maduro regime to continue moving in opposite directions in economics and politics.
What we see is an increasing likelihood that Venezuela will end-up a Cuba-like disaster: perpetual sanctions, no political opposition, economic stagnation and no resolution to the debt default.
PDVSA’s production hit bottom in 2020, and we expect Venezuelan oil output to stabilize in 2021, averaging 550 tbd over the year.
After seven years of contraction, we expect GDP to grow 2% in 2021, mainly driven by the non-oil sector (trade, construction and financial sectors).
BUY: Both Venezuela and PDVSA bonds ro...
Emerging markets faced massive capital flight as a result of the COVID-19 crisis.
However, there has been debate as to whether the severe initial shock was primarily the result of an interruption in liquidity flows and not the deterioration of macroeconomic variables.
Growth in emerging economies may have taken a permanent hit but, at the same time, emerging markets could become more attractive to those hunting for yield.
We believe that the deepness of the impact of the pandemic on EMs can be quantified.
Some observers of Venezuelan debt have proposed the idea of leveraging the Original Issue Discount (OID) on most of the country’s bonds to eliminate a portion of the principal claims in a future restructuring.
Most USD-denominated bonds were initially settled for local currency at an overvalued official exchange rate, thus generating arbitrage returns for locals.
While we don’t think applying an OID argument formally would be practical, we do think it will be a part of a broader discursive push for high haircuts.
After assessing the initial and amortized OID in each Venezuelan bond, we suggest that warry inves...
The PDVSA 22n bond has been highly controversial since its initial sale in a disputed 2017 transaction for the very unusual price of 31 cents on the dollar.
The bond’s issuance was heavily questioned by National Assembly representatives. This included strongly-worded statements by influential Congressman Julio Borges, who recommend its repudiation.
Nonetheless, we think the case against the bond is not so much about its legality, but rather its illiquidity and the potential reputational risk it entails.
On balance, holding this bond would be hard to justify, and a constructive investment thesis would have to rely on...
We take a comprehensive look at political risk indicators in a group of Emerging Market countries, trying to identify potential sources of conflict.
We analyze the electoral scenarios in the four Latin American nations that will have electoral processes during the end of 2020 and all of 2021.
We review the scenarios in the parliamentarians of Argentina and El Salvador, we comment on the electoral process that will take place in Venezuela, and we review the perspectives of the presidential elections in Ecuador.
We evaluated the World Bank’s governance indicators for our sample countries in 2019 and share our view of thes...
Late on Sunday, Bloomberg News reported that President-elect intends to name Antony Blinken as Secretary of State.
Blinken is deemed a strong defender of multilateralism and believes that the United States should reinforce its alliance with Europe.
We expect that Blinken to start negotiations with stronger emphasis on gradual concessions and less emphasis on instant regime change, but not an outright lifting of the sanctions regime.
We expect any relaxation of the sanctions regime to come after Maduro’s regime show a prove of good faith.
Until August, the export index has declined 75.5% y-o-y. However, the exports index could be overestimating the decline after oil sanctions were imposed.
Unexpectedly, our import index shows a 22.3% increase until August.
We expect that this growth in imports will translate into a slight growth in GDP next year, under the assumption that oil production remains stable at an average of 400 kbd
With Biden’s victory we expect a de-escalation of the sanction regime in the medium term and a halt on the imposition of secondary sanctions in the short term
We think the change of administration in the US is likely to le...
Judge Katherine Polk Failla decided that the PDVSA 8.5 2020 bond is valid and enforceable, which brings bondholders one step closer to CITGO.
The applicable law governing the bonds is NY law, not Venezuelan law (as the Guaidó team had argued).
Furthermore, the several resolutions issued by the National Assembly rejecting the bond do not justify the application of the Act of State Doctrine.
It is worth remembering that OFAC’s General License 5E still blocks the attachment of the shares until January 2021, at the earliest.
Just shy of their 3rd year in default, there is USD 885 mn worth of sovereign bonds, USD 60 mn of PDVSA bonds, and USD 207 mn of PDVSA promissory notes under litigation.
A series of setbacks in the Casa Express/Pharo Gaia, Contrarian Capital, and Lovati et al. cases could have a very serious impact on a future restructuring of Venezuelan debt.
The legal representation of the Guaidó administration had been pursuing stays on litigation on the premise that judgements would hurt Venezuela’s capacity to renegotiate the debt in the future.
Several court decisions have found this argument lacking, indicating that in...
On September 15, the Maduro administration announced an offer to freeze the operation of the “prescription clause” in Venezuelan bonds.
According to some interpretations, this clause would cut down in half the NY law’s 6-year Statute of Limitations, putting missed coupons from late 2017 at risk of being lost.
Late on Monday, the Guaidó’s administration issued a statement clarifying that the prescription clause does not decrease the standard 6-year period to present legal actions on overdue payments.
The Maduro administration’s offer never made sense other than as a political ploy to ge...
The Maduro administration issued a statement offering a conditional agreement for the suspension of the statute of limitation on Venezuelan bonds.
Statute of Limitations on bonds extend to 6 years under New York law. It means that overdue payments that are not legally reclaimed within that timeframe become legally unenforceable.
U.S. persons are barred by sanctions from participating in any negotiation with the Maduro administration and any agreement would be legally invalid in U.S. courts.
It is very unlikely that the Maduro administration is ignorant of the fact that any agreement at this stage is impossible, which lead...
After January 5, 2021, the interim government goes into a grey area where its legitimacy is weakened.
Capriles intends to create a new space for negotiation, which unlocks the internal political struggle.
As we see it, although the recent political moves open up a political game that was stagnant, they do not increase the probabilities of regime change in the short term.
There hasn’t been much movement in Venezuela’s legal cases in U.S. courts and expectations of regime change have worsened somehow. We like PDVSA 8.5 2020 and cheap high-coupon Venezuelan bonds.
Since 2014, the economic debacle in general – and, particularly, the decline of oil production – has resulted in some large structural changes in the Venezuelan economy.
After the nationalization in 2011, revenues from gold smuggling sums on average USD 7.9 bn. In 2018 alone, Venezuela could have received USD 2.3 bn for gold smuggling.
According to our estimates, remittances went from 0.4% of GDP in 2017 to 4.2% of GDP in 2019.
We estimate that by the end of this year remittances would stand at 5.9% of GDP.
As we’ve noted before, we like the risk-return relation on the PDVSA 8.5 2020 and retain our...
Venezuela was already in a bad place before COVID-19, and the pandemic has only made it worse. The political and humanitarian crises look further from resolution than ever. Yet, there are still reasons to be hopeful of a sharp recovery once a transition materializes. In this report, we look at the facts to find a balance between the dual narratives of redemption and damnation.
Section 1 – The Bad: Venezuela Looks Like Post-War Debris, deals with the incredible plunge in the country’s economy, which is only comparable to some of the most destructive wars in recent history.
Section 2 – The Good: Venezuela is Sitting on a (B...
Taking a look at the history of the case of Kensington International Ltd. vs the Republic of Congo, we find some similarities that could be relevant to current Venezuela litigations.
In the event that creditors cannot (ultimately) put their hands over CITGO because of OFAC licenses or any other reasons, Venezuela/PDVSA cannot escape without paying one way or another.
Nevertheless, the core of Kensington vs Congo was the establishment of a fraudulent structure for the country to continue selling its oil without paying to creditors. This part of the dispute is hardly relatable for the most important Venezuela/PDVSA cases, which a...
The PDVSA 8.5 2020’s illegality trial is at the definitive stage and we review both sides' arguments to see who may be leading the race.
A hearing that could decide the case is scheduled for August 12.
The core of the dispute right now is the governing law for the authorization to pledge CITGO shares as collateral.
If the bondholders win the trial, the process of collecting the money could differ from the standard waterfall payment structure used in bankruptcy cases.
For now, the idea of a de-escalation of the conflict, a negotiation process and the possibility of mediation for the lifting of sanctions, seem far away.
PDVSA output plunged to 280 tbd in June, this places current Venezuelan output at its 1928 level, when the country was starting oil exploitation.
Households in a situation of income poverty went from 48.4% in 2014 to 96.2% in 2019 and extreme poverty went from 23.6% in 2014 to 79.3% in 2019.
We cut our growth estimate for 2020 from -21.2% last month to the current -30.2%.
For the past year, U.S. government executive orders have safeguarded Citgo from creditor attachment.
However, the defensive edifice is beginning to crack.
In the Crystallex trial, the upcoming fortnight will be key to decide the future of CITGO, according to the schedule set by Judge Leonard Stark.
The judge has moved to allow think the sale process through but has avoided giving the green light to the actual sale.
The Guaidó administration has just one last bullet in the chamber to protect Citgo.
We take a look at the parties’ proposals on how to sell the PDVH shares.
We estimate that less ...
36 of the 77 eligible countries have applied for the G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI).
Chinese debt has grown significantly, but has remained highly opaque. The recently released World Bank dataset is a big step forward in this regard.
Countries that would benefit the most from DSSI owe on average 42% of their 2020-2021 and 41.1% of their 2022-2025 debt service to China.
So far, DSSI only extends for payments scheduled for 2020, but there are many voices calling for an extension to 2021.
To put it bluntly, a program of debt relief or a generalized standstill on official debt would go nowhere wit...
Emerging debt continues to be in trouble given current market conditions.
So far debt relief proposals by the G20, IMF and World Bank have only included private creditors on a voluntary basis.
It seems more costly to deal with relief or restructuring of Eurobonds than to advocate for this type of request in bilateral and commercial debt.
Multilateral organizations are also constrained from granting debt relief by its potential impact on their own credit profiles.
Low interest rates and the hunt for yields of the last decade has left broad swaths of EMs overindebted and vulnerable.
The first half of 2020 is not yet over and we already have 3 countries in default.
The recent record of most defaults on Eurobonds on a single year was 4 in 2017, so 2020 is not far from setting new records.
Eurobond restructuring processes are usually among the most complicated due to the variety of holders and the different interests they represent.
Suriname, Zambia, Belize, Sri Lanka and Angola are in the most risk to engross the default-statistic for the year.
Current gasoline production stands at around 35 kbd, representing a drop of 84.9% compared to the 2008 peak.
We expect that after the demand peak of the first week of the new price system, fuel demand will drop in the following weeks, so Iranian gas could last a month.
If the Maduro government fails to import more gasoline or reactivate the refining plants soon, we will once again see shortages like those of April and May.
Prospects for the economy remain grim, with a projected drop in GDP of 21.2% and inflation of 5,648% in 2020.
May was one of those months that feels like a year. We had a default in Argentina, a tense election in Suriname, a deadly pandemic still spreading around the world, and yet, it was a good month for emerging market debt
Our EMFI Core Index went up for the first time in 6 months. The biggest winners were Argentina, Angola and Ecuador, while Venezuela, Suriname and Sri Lanka were among the negative outliers that went against the general risk-on mood
The macro and fiscal situations deteriorated further for all countries covered, and we chronicled the dramatic economic crash in our Country Reports
We’ve been preparing fo...
As of May 22, 8 countries have at least one USD-denominated sovereign bond trading below 50 cents on the dollar.
The Covid-19 crisis could lead to a new wave of sovereign defaults from prolonged confinements.
We discuss the worst debt restructuring events so far this century.
Argentina 2005 remains at the forefront of these events if we exclude the exceptional cases of countries at war or leaving them.
The countries with the most compromised solvencies that could generate problems with their debt are Angola and somewhat behind, Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Egypt and Pakistan.
A pandemic year was on the cards, the dramatic magnitude of its effects was not.
The global economy is expected to shrink by 3% in 2020, but leading indicators are pointing to a deeper downturn.
Emerging countries with a history of volatile economic growth will show the worst results.
Some economies may experience a period of above-trend growth during the recovery, although the level of GDP will remain, in most cases, below the pre-virus level.
Today, the US Supreme Court rejected the request made by the Guaidó-appointed Special Prosecutor's office to overturn the Third Circuit Court decision that allows Crystallex to seize Citgo Holding shares.
The political arguments outlined in the appeal were based on the idea that the decision to allow Crystallex to seize the Citgo shares would go against US foreign policy interests
The move could be seen as a Hail Mary by the Guaidó-administration, which hoped that the SCOTUS and the US Executive would prioritize foreign relations. Nonetheless, the pass failed miserably.
The Trump administration rem...
Pakistan is the weakest among the EMFI Countries, in terms of the spread of the virus. Lebanon, Sri Lanka and Barbados are the strongest, with a controlled increase rate and a persistent lockdown.
The countries that we evaluate with the worst economic performance year-to-date are Angola, Venezuela, Lebanon, Barbados, El Salvador, Ecuador, Sri Lanka, Argentina and Suriname.
Since the end of 2019, the local currency has depreciated -70.5% in Venezuela, -52.4% in Lebanon, -43.5% in Argentina and -40% in Suriname.
El Salvador and Argentina launched the most ambitious fiscal program among our sample, which will cost 6% and 5.6...
The safest rung of EM hard-currency sovereign bonds fell on March but has already retraced all their losses.
Mid-quality EMs plunged over March and have risen somehow since, but haven’t fully recovered.
This segment has seen a 320 bps rise in average yield in 2020, going from an average 6.1% yield to 9.3%.
We believe high-yield bonds in our mid-quality group have significant upside if they avert a credit event.
After a dry March, markets are again open for fresh bonds, but only from relatively high-quality issuers.
The press uncovered the involvement of the Juan Guaidó interim government in a poorly-planned maritime incursion to overthrow Maduro.
The failed incursion damages the interim government’s claim to constitutionality, on which international recognition is based.
Alejandro Grisanti, member of PDVSA ad hoc board, resigned from his position last week.
Grisanti's resignation represents the weakening of the fraction within the interim government that advocates for a negotiated solution with the bondholders.
US stocks rose 12.7% in April, while US investment grade bonds rose 4.6% and EM bonds 4.0%.
Our EMFI Core Index fell 0.9% over the month and is 27.1% down YTD.
The best performers of April were Egypt (+4.7%), Sri Lanka (+4.0%) and Turkey (+3.8%).
The worst performers were Suriname (-26.9%), Lebanon (-14.0%) and El Salvador (-11.3%).
The IMF has approved just over USD 16.0 bn for 61 countries.
Of the 16 countries we follow, 6 have already been granted financing for a combined USD 3.5 bn.
Lebanon and Argentina presented restructuring proposals asking for large debt relief but not offering much adjustment.<...
We identified 23 countries that have at least one bond yielding above 10%, a threshold usually associated with sovereign distress.
Among the most distressed credits, first-time defaulter Lebanon is trading between 16.3 and 18.3 cents on the dollar, on account of slow progress on a reform plan.
Argentina’s debt goes in a range of 23.2 to 34.6 cents on the dollar, days after the Fernández administration’s aggressive mid-April proposal to bondholders was publicly rejected by 3 creditor groups.
Ecuador trades between 28.8 and 33.6, after negotiating a coupon standstill that will give the country until Augus...
Citgo’s 2019 net income plunged 71.1%, from USD 851 mn in 2018 to USD 246 mn. EBITDA decline 42.3% from USD 1.85 bn to USD 1.06 bn, mainly driven by the decline in Lake Charles EBITDA that fell USD 301 mn.
Some PDVSA creditors expected Citgo to help pay off its parent’s debts. Citgo bond covenants restricts dividends payments while its net leverage (Dividend Threshold), or net debt divided by pre-tax earnings (EBITDA), remains above 2. The net leverage ratio jumped from 4.8 in 2018 to 16.8 at the end of last year.
We not expect the net leverage to fall below that level in the next year, since weaker refining margins...
Two weeks ago, we singled out some early calls for a generalized global debt moratorium in our Global Strategy Viewpoint: Force Majeure. The idea has gained significant traction and is becoming one of the main themes in economic and financial discussion.
While we don’t think a generalized moratorium on commercial bonded debt is likely to succeed, investors should be aware that it is a growing theme and bondholders will probably be under increased pressure to accept attempts at restructuring bond terms.
There are some indications that China is a significant roadblock for the IMF-World Bank initiative for a bilateral debt m...
Our index shows that in 2019 exports plunged 51.3% as US sanctions on PDVSA affected oil exports to the Venezuelan main trade partner.
We expect this decline to continue in 2020, recording a 67.8% contraction at the end of the year, as the price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia continues to flood oil market and the COVID-19 containment measures curtails global demand.
Imports halted in 2019, falling by 44.1%. This reflects a strong 58.5% y-o-y decline imports in 2Q19 after the wind down period of the US sanctions came to an end.
We expect the imports decline to continue in 2020, registering a 27.6% contraction th...
The COVID-19 crisis is raising a difficult question of public policy for emerging market economies with low fiscal space, which have to reconcile economic and social policy with debt service.
The relation between liquidity and solvency problems is not straight-forward: the COVID-19 shock, which presents liquidity challenges first and foremost, can unearth underlying solvency problems and can also turn liquidity problems into solvency ones if improperly managed.
We’re already seeing some early calls for an international debt holiday to exempt countries from paying during the COVID-19 crisis. Multilateral organizations are ...
The current crisis will translate into twin demand and supply shocks, with an oil price war on top of it.
The demand shock driven by declines in the world’s main trading partners will particularly affect emerging markets which are characterized by low diversification of exports and production.
Supply chains around the world have been disrupted by factory closures, first in China and now in Europe and the US.
The markets most exposed to a potential slowdown are the major commodity exporters: Venezuela, Ecuador, Angola and the markets most reliant on Chinese and US tourism.
In most EMFI countries the tourism act...
Our EMFI Core Index has fallen 27.6% year-to-date (YTD), while Our EMFI Expanded Index has fallen 19.2%. The last two weeks have been particularly bad, with consecutive 10% declines.
Unsurprisingly, countries heavily reliant on oil have suffered the most. Among our 34-country group, almost every oil-reliant one has fallen more than the 18.3% median.
The second thing that jumps to the eye is that the riskier countries have fared proportionally worse than relatively safer countries, when excluding oil-dependent countries.
We’re also seeing several countries crossing the 10% yield threshold, usually associated with dis...
The outbreak of the Coronavirus, as well as the “oil price war” between Saudi Arabia and Russia have triggered almost complete certainty that a global recession is coming over the next quarter.
Some economists are expecting a 2-quarter rolling recession, but there is potential for the downturn to extend further if the virus reemerges after activity is unfrozen.
Emerging market debt is taking a beating in 2020 so far. The countries we cover registered a median 14.3% fall year-to-date, with the worst performer doing as bad as 60.3% down (Ecuador) and 38.5% down (Angola).
We compare indicators on 4 major categori...
Venezuela is very likely to have elections this year. However, these will not be presidential, but rather parliamentary.
The parliamentary term expires in January 2021 and the current point of contention is now the election of an arbitrator for a parliamentary election, instead of a presidential one.
During past weeks, the deputies of Parra’s AN and opposition-controlled AN resumed joint work to select the members of the electoral board.
Now, the opposition seems to be backtracking on electoral negotiations and seeking to increase internal pressure by calling antigovernment protest in the coming days.
We expec...
February was a bad month for EM debt, as the market went into risk-off mode pushing bonds to backtrack on the gains made over the previous two months. 11 out of the 15 countries in our EMFI Core Index fell on the month, while the weighted index itself fell 5.8%, retracing below December levels.
Our Expanded Index ex. Core confirms February’s sell-off, registering declines in 21 out of 25 countries and an aggregated fall of 0.9%. Nonetheless, this fall is significantly below that of our EMFI Core Index.
Our selection of countries is clearly biased towards some large and risky high-yielders, which translates to an expectabl...
Today, Otabek Karimov, Rosneft’s VP for commerce and logistics, held the 4Q earnings conference call. The executive reacted to the fresh sanctions imposed by the U.S. Treasury.
The company said its work with PDVSA focuses on debt repayment.
Karimov told investors that PDVSA is paying its debt to Rosneft in line with an agreed schedule.
Elliott Abrams said yesterday that PDVSA paid last year USD 1.8 bn to the Russian company, which according to Rosneft financial statement equals to the remaining amount of the Venezuelan debt.
PDVSA reduced the debt principal under prepayment deals from USD 1.8 bn at the end of ...
This report is divided into three large thematic blocks: sections 1 to 4 deal with the general economic and political environment in the country, sections 5 to 7 deal with external debt and assets, and sections 8 to 10 deal with the future restructuring of the Venezuelan debt.
Section 1 – Oil Production, deals with our interpretation of the impact of sanctions on the local industry, and the ways in which the Maduro government evades them.
Section 2 – Fiscal Accounts and Inflation, describes the evolution of inflationary trends, monetary financing and the government’s fiscal deficit.
Section 3 &ndas...
Current prices for Venezuelan debt show a significant disparity between PDVSA and sovereign bonds. On average, PDVSA bonds are trading at 7.8 cents per dollar, a very large 4.3 cents on the dollar discount to sovereign debt, which is trading at an average 12.2 cents on the dollar.
We compute past-due interests for each sovereign and PDVSA bond, and employ them to estimate the value of the potential claims that bondholders could pursue for each instrument. We further size these in relation to each bond’s price. This measure gives us the size of the nominal claim that can be bought per dollar of investment.
We find that hig...
On Thursday January 30, Bloomberg published a story referring to a “a little-known clause” named the “prescription clause” that is included in the prospectus of every Venezuelan sovereign bond issued since 2005. The main point of contention on the interpretation of the clause lies on whether it modifies the standard statute of limitations for bonds governed by New York law.
In total, 11 out 15 Venezuelan sovereign bonds include it in their prospectuses. This means that the clause affects USD 29.54 bn of face value or 81.8% of the total amount outstanding. Only the Venz 9.25% 2027, Venz 13.625% 2018 and Venz 9....
PDVSA’s oil output has been declining steadily since 2009 due to a combination of factors such as the loss of skilled workers - with workers systematically quitting the company, the fast drop of production in mature fields, structural disinvestment and mismanagement, the lack of equipment, obstacles for exporting oil, port congestion and, more recently, financial sanctions. However, the pace of the decline accelerated after US sanctioned PDVSA, which barred Venezuelan oil exports from its major market: the US.
Since November oil production and exports recovered, when Indian refiner Reliance and Spanish Repsol, incre...
The existence of two dueling legislative boards is an escalation of the internal conflict, limiting Guaidó maneuvering space since he is unable to enter the National Assembly (AN). The event could translate into an increase in internal pressure through the revival of civil protest, but we see it as highly unlikely.
On the external side, we don’t believe this chaotic bet to stop Guaidó reelection by using security forces, and appointing an alternative AN board, was an attempt to gain legitimacy in a broad sense. Instead, it appears geared to please the Maduro regime’s main international ally: Russia.
It...
On December 16, the opposition-controlled National Assembly approved a reform to its internal debate regulation that will allow representatives in exile to vote in the January 5 National Assembly board of director’s election, which is set to pick the assembly’s president for 2020.
The approval of this modification seems to be Guaidó's way of ensuring its ratification in January, due to the uncertainty raised by the “scorpion operation” and the intensification of political persecution in the last weeks, which put the opposition majority in the parlament at risk.
In our baseline scenario, which ...
