The long wait may finally be over. Since the great crash of oil in mid-2014, more than $100 billion has been raised by buyout firms and distressed-debt funds eager to scoop up energy assets on the cheap. But as the months rolled by, few opportunities cropped up as cash-starved drillers limped along with the help... Continue Reading →

Odebrecht SA, the once-powerful Brazilian construction firm with 110 billion reais ($35.2 billion) in debt, hired Eduardo Munhoz, founding partner at E.Munhoz Advogados, to help with the “company restructuring process.” Munhoz was hired by the holding company about six months ago and has been working with Odebrecht Agroindustrial on its successful 13 billion-real debt restructuring... Continue Reading →

Even after Brazil outperformed almost all other major markets this year, analysts and fund managers say there’s still room for further gains if suspended President Dilma Rousseff is impeached in coming weeks. Rousseff’s permanent ouster would clear the way for acting President Michel Temer to get on with the fiscal reforms investors have been pushing... Continue Reading →

The worst may be yet to come for some strained oil services companies as $110 billion in debt, most of it junk rated, creeps closer to maturity. More than $21 billion of debt from oilfield services and drilling companies is estimated to be maturing in 2018, almost three times the total burden in 2017, according... Continue Reading →

Chevron couldn’t have won a more emphatic victory in its long-running Ecuadorian pollution case than Monday's ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York. A three-judge panel unanimously affirmed a trial court's determination that, in 2011, the lead attorney for some 30,000 Ecuadorians had won a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron by means of bribery, coercion, and... Continue Reading →

Insurers who sell policies limiting executives' liability from lawsuits have seen a surge in business thanks to a sprawling Brazilian corruption probe involving state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA and a rash of corporate bankruptcies. The country's so-called Directors & Officers (D&O) insurance market has more than doubled in value since 2011 based on the volumes of... Continue Reading →

Brazil’s real swung between gains and losses as oil fell and the dollar strengthened against most currencies, offsetting reassuring messages from the economic team in Latin America’s largest economy. The real gained 0.1 percent to 3.19 per dollar at 12:16 p.m. in Sao Paulo, after falling 0.2 percent. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index, which tracks the U.S.... Continue Reading →