%1

Rio de Janeiro prosecutors have asked the court supervising Oi SA's bankruptcy proceedings to suspend a shareholders meeting scheduled for Sept. 8 to give the Brazilian phone carrier time to negotiate with a minority investor, Reuters reported yesterday. The purpose of the meeting is to decide on changes to Oi's board as proposed by activist minority investor Société Mondiale, according to a statement yesterday. Aside from replacing all of the board members appointed by majority Oi shareholder Pharol, Société Mondiale proposed a lawsuit against current and former managers of the company for alleged losses imposed on the carrier as a result of their actions, according to court filings. Prosecutor Márcio Souza Guimarães said before any shareholder action can be taken, there should be "mediation" between the dissenting parties.

South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Co. filed for receivership today, as shipping companies world-wide grapple with overcapacity amid a slump in global trade, the Wall Street Journal reported. The filing with the Seoul Central District Court came just a day after the company’s creditors discontinued providing a lifeline after financial assistance of more than 1 trillion won ($896 million) failed to keep it afloat. The court will soon determine whether Hanjin, the country’s largest container operator by capacity, should be liquidated or given a chance to survive after restructuring, the company said.

Spanish renewable energy firm Abengoa SA has sold five of its Midwestern U.S. ethanol plants for $357 million as the company looks to stave off what would be Spain’s largest-ever corporate bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Green Plains Inc. of Omaha, Neb., which operates 14 plants and has an ethanol-marketing unit, is paying $200 million for Abengoa plants in Mount Vernon, Ind., and Madison, Ill., according to papers filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in St. Louis. Green Plains also topped Houston-based BioUrja Trading LLC, an ethanol-marketing firm that doesn’t have production operations, for Abengoa’s York, Neb., plant with a $37.4 million bid at bankruptcy auction Monday. An affiliate of plant operator KAAPA Ethanol LLC of Minden, Neb., is paying $115 million for Abengoa’s Ravenna, Neb., plant. And ICM Inc. is picking up Abengoa’s shuttered plant in Colwich, Kan., for $3.15 million.

When it comes to defaulted bonds in China, there has been either full repayment or delays and diversions, Bloomberg News reported today. Of the 26 local public notes with failures since Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science & Technology Co. became the first company to renege on an onshore note payment in 2014, nine have been fully repaid and only one was partially made good, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Most of the rest haven’t released information on repayment plans and Moody’s Investors Service bemoans the lack of a transparent restructuring process. As authorities allow more companies to collapse, domestic bond failures soared this year, bringing the total principal of defaulted notes to 22.5 billion yuan ($3.4 billion) since 2014. Given the short history of such failures, debtholders have no road map for recovering their investments. Moody’s says the country needs to establish bankruptcy protection law like chapter 11 in the U.S. to offer breathing space for struggling firms to negotiate with creditors and get back on their feet again.

Renewable energy and engineering company Abengoa SA said it had reached a restructuring deal with its creditors to avoid becoming Spain’s largest-ever bankruptcy, the Wall Street Journal reported today. A group of investors including Centerbridge Partners LP, Elliott Management Corp. and Oaktree Capital Management LP have agreed to inject €1.17 billion ($1.31 billion) into the debt-laden company, Abengoa said yesterday in a regulatory filing. Abengoa will also receive €307 million in financial guarantees, according to the filing. In exchange, investors and creditor banks, such as Spanish lenders Banco Santander SA and Banco Popular Español SA, are set to own between 90 percent and 95 percent of Abengoa, depending on whether Abengoa meets certain targets. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

Find out more about the current landscape of international insolvency and restructuring from top practitioners and experts at ABI’s International Insolvency Symposium in Amsterdam on Oct. 7. Click here for more information and to register. 

Even as Venezuela’s economic collapse deepens, the nation has a good chance of getting through another year without defaulting on its bonds, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. That’s the conclusion of money managers including Aberdeen Asset Management and Wall Street banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co. The cash-strapped country has been on default watch for the past two years as oil prices remain depressed, its economy implodes and political turmoil worsens amid an effort to recall the president. Yet Venezuela has managed to scrounge up enough money to honor billions in debt payments, and this year appears to be no different. Petroleos de Venezuela SA, the struggling state oil producer, has $4.1 billion of debt payments to make before year-end.

Lenders owed more than $700 million have called for an independent trustee to take over a bankruptcy liquidation of China Fishery Group, which they have accused of stalling efforts to repay them, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. In court papers filed on Monday with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, lawyers for the lender group said they see “grave risk” in allowing the family that founded and controls the company — the Ng family — to remain in charge. “The need for transparency and independent oversight has been a substantial concern of the [lenders] for some time,” they said. “The stakeholders have lost all faith in the Ng family properly using chapter 11 to best serve creditors’ interests.” Ng Puay Yee, the company’s chief executive officer, has hinted that lenders may try to wrest control of the company away from its current management. In court papers filed in June when China Fishery sought chapter 11 protection, Ng said his business was “in jeopardy as a result of the aggressive and improper acts by certain lenders.”

U.K. yellow-pages company Hibu PLC is seeking help from a U.S. bankruptcy judge for a second time in two years, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. A Hibu affiliate, YH Ltd., filed court papers on Wednesday seeking chapter 15 protection while it works to shed some £600 million ($785 million) in debt. If the request is approved by Judge Shelley Chapman, who is overseeing the case, Hibu would be temporarily shielded from distractions like lawsuits and other forms of creditor interference in the U.S. Hibu maintains a substantial presence in the U.S. but much of its debt, issued by YH Ltd., and its corporate leadership is based in the U.K., where the company sought the equivalent of chapter 11 protection earlier this year. A hearing on its chapter 15 petition, which aims for formal U.S. recognition of the U.K. proceeding, is scheduled for Sept. 7 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.