The Trump administration extended a temporary shield over Venezuela’s Citgo Petroleum Corp. ahead of a looming debt payment, protecting the Houston-based crude refiner from potential seizure by creditors for three months, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The Treasury Department yesterday prohibited through Jan. 22 Venezuela bondholders from seizing a controlling stake in Citgo, the South American country’s largest asset in the U.S. By keeping bondholders at bay, if only temporarily, the measure fulfills a request from Venezuela’s U.S.-backed opposition leaders, who took control of Citgo from President Nicolás Maduro in February and have been scrambling to keep control of the company. Bondholders with collateral rights over Citgo are owed $913 million next Monday and were preparing to foreclose on a 50.1 percent stake in the company if they weren’t paid. The opposition government led by Juan Guaidó has signaled they wouldn’t pay, raising the risk that Citgo could wind up mired in litigation or bankruptcy. The Monday bond payment had pitted the interests of bondholders including Ashmore Group PLC, BlackRock Financial Management Inc. and Contrarian Capital Management LLC against Guaidó’s opposition movement in Caracas.
