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South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co Ltd. yesterday won near unanimous approval for a debt-to-equity swap plan in the first two of five bondholder meetings, as the world's largest shipbuilder battles to stay afloat, Reuters reported. The votes were held hours after Daewoo's biggest bondholder, the South Korea's National Pension Service (NPS), said that it had agreed to the proposal. That move made it likely other bondholders would follow suit, creditor bank officials said, allowing the shipbuilder to meet conditions of a $2.6 billion bank bailout. The shipbuilder has been pushed to the brink by the impact of historically low oil prices, which caused delays in payments for complex offshore facilities. At risk is an estimated 50,000 jobs and an economic hit of tens of billions of dollars.

Potential rescuers of Japan's Takata Corp have extended talks, already in their 14th month, for a deal to take over the air bag maker at the heart of the auto industry's biggest safety recall, Reuters reported on Friday. Car-parts maker Key Safety Systems Inc. and Bain Capital LLC are the preferred bidders for Takata, whose faulty air bags have been blamed for at least 16 deaths worldwide. Discussions that include the steering committee tapped by the air bag maker to oversee the search for a financial sponsor, automaker clients, suitors and bankers are now likely to run on until at least end-May. The parties have already moved beyond an informal, self-imposed end-March deadline to work out a deal. Recent talks, described by two participants as “chaotic,” have focused on issues such as an indemnity agreement to cover reimbursement costs for air bag recalls, estimated to be as high as $10 billion.

Venezuela has put off a reckoning on its tens of billions of dollars in debt, but its ability to avoid a disastrous default will probably require much higher oil prices than appear likely in the next year or two, financial experts say, the New York Times reported today. With its oil production and international reserves falling at an accelerating rate, the government is juggling as fast as it can to pay for imported food and medicines while meeting its short-term bond payments. Even as the country has slashed imports, its reserves have declined by half over the last two years, to $10.4 billion. Most of that sum is in gold and is pledged as security for many of the government’s creditors, which include international institutional investors and everyday Venezuelans.

The U.S. arm of British lingerie company Agent Provocateur has filed for chapter 11 protection to execute a sale of its assets, which were stranded when the company went bankrupt in the U.K., MarketWatch.com reported yesterday Agent Provocateur Inc. filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. on Tuesday, having reached an agreement to sell 12 of its U.S. stores to Four Marketing Group. Fashion agency Four Marketing, which also bought Agent Provocateur's U.K. operation, has agreed to provide the U.S. company with a $500,000 bankruptcy loan and serve as a stalking horse bidder during a bankruptcy auction for the stores. Parent company Agent Provocateur Ltd. entered administration in the U.K. in March after accounting irregularities surfaced late last year, which would have required the company's private-equity sponsor, 3i Group PLC, to invest substantially more, according to court documents.

Venezuela’s state-owned oil company should be stopped from plundering its U.S. subsidiary Citgo Holding Inc., according to court papers filed on Monday evening by a creditor seeking $1.4 billion from the South American country, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Canadian mining company Crystallex International Corp. asked a Delaware federal judge for an injunction blocking Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PdVSA) from taking cash or transferring assets from Citgo, the U.S. crude refiner owned by PdVSA. Crystallex asked the judge to stop PdVSA from “making any transfers, or otherwise alienating, transferring, encumbering or diminishing its assets, directly or indirectly” for anything less than fair consideration. The injunction request adds to mounting legal and financial pressures on PdVSA, the major economic engine in recession-ravaged Venezuela, at a time when investors are growing more skeptical the country can service its debts much longer. Venezuela and PdVSA together owe approximately $8 billion of debt coming due this year and another $7.9 billion next year.

South Korea’s National Pension Service has a decision to make — help the world’s biggest shipmaker survive, or let it die, according to Bloomberg News today. Creditors to Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. are due to meet next week to decide whether to convert some of the 1.55 trillion won ($1.4 billion) of bonds into equity to help the unprofitable company. Tipping the scale will be the decision of NPS, the biggest holder of debt that matures this month. “If the National Pension Service doesn’t agree to the debt restructuring plan, then Daewoo Shipbuilding will no longer exist,” said Choi Gwang-shik, an analyst at HI Investment & Securities Co. in Seoul. It’s the biggest test for South Korea’s lenders after Korea Development Bank, the shipbuilder’s majority shareholder, allowed Hanjin Shipping Co. to collapse last year after refusing to support its debt restructuring plan. Hanjin’s demise stranded about a hundred container ships around the world and roiled the global supply chain, putting some 11,000 jobs at risk. A Daewoo shutdown could be much worse, jeopardizing up to 50,000 jobs and $34 billion of vessel orders from companies.

With 100 million reais ($32 million) in outstanding debts, the 2016 Rio Olympics organizing committee is trying to pay off suppliers with items — air conditioners, portable energy units, electrical cables — in lieu of or in addition to cash, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The cash crunch is a legacy of the financial crisis that hit Brazil just as preparations for the Olympics were getting underway. Rio 2016 is now asking creditors to agree to settle debts for 30 percent less than they’re owed, said Mario Andrada, Rio 2016’s head of communications. Andrada said Rio remains hopeful it will meet its obligations by June, when the organizing committee shuts down. If it doesn’t, the burden will pass to local and state governments that backed the committee’s credit. Both governments now have financial trouble of their own, and it’s not clear whether they can pay off Olympic debts either. The state government, on the verge of bankruptcy, is already struggling to pay public servants.

The Trump administration and the Japanese government are in discussions to ensure that the bankruptcy of Toshiba Corp.’s U.S. unit Westinghouse Electric Co does not lead to U.S. technology secrets and infrastructure falling into Chinese hands, a U.S. official said yesterday, Reuters reported. Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy last month hit by billions of dollars of cost overruns at four nuclear reactors under construction in the U.S. Southeast. The bankruptcy is likely to lead to the eventual sale of Westinghouse's nuclear business and Chinese interests have been seen as possible buyers. "It's a real concern; they've wanted to get their hands on power grid and nuclear infrastructure for a long time," an official in the U.S. administration told Reuters as China's President Xi Jinping arrived in the United States on Thursday for a first summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that conversations were going on between the U.S. and Japanese governments "on ways to mitigate a potential sale."

The judge overseeing the in-court restructuring of Brazilian phone company Oi SA dropped PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) from the case because he believes the firm made accounting mistakes in the biggest bankruptcy filing in the country's history, according to a court document reviewed by Reuters on Friday. Judge Fernando Cesar Ferreira Viana said in his decision that he had lost trust in PwC after it asked for an extension and committed a "gross error" in compiling a list of Oi's creditors. The judge appointed BDO Consultoria to replace PwC on the case, working in conjunction with law firm Arnoldo Wald. The judge's decision could delay Oi's protracted restructuring process, since the list of its debts must be finalized before creditors can vote on its recovery plan. Viana said in the ruling that he was suspending an April 4 deadline for PwC to submit the list.