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Paul Singer’s nearly 15-year-old wager on Argentinian government bonds has yielded $2.4 billion, including over $100 million for lawyer fees and other considerations, a gain of roughly 10 to 15 times its original investment, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Singer’s Elliott Management Corp., a New York hedge fund that manages $26 billion, began the investment in the early days of George W. Bush’s first term. At the time, an Elliott portfolio manager named Jay Newman was looking for an angle on Argentinian debt, then trading at about 20 cents on the dollar. Elliott reckoned it might take a few years for the investment to pan out. The country agreed in principle to pay $4.65 billion to Elliott and three other hedge funds to settle their claims on the country’s defaulted debt, according to Daniel Pollack, a mediator charged by a U.S. judge with overseeing settlement of the dispute.

Abengoa Bioenergy US Holding LLC, a unit of Spanish conglomerate Abengoa SA, received interim financing to pay wages and keep the lights on while it tries to reorganize under chapter 11 protection, according to a court ruling on yesterday, Reuters reported. Abengoa Bioenergy filed for bankruptcy protection last week. Lawyers said yesterday that it is a guarantor on more than $6 billion in liabilities linked to its Spanish parent's debt structure, which tops $20 billion. Abengoa, a global engineering and clean energy company, is in the midst of a debt restructuring. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Kathy Surratt-States approved the debtor-in-possession or DIP loan on an interim basis over objections from grain suppliers who are owed money by Abengoa Bioenergy and said they feared the cash would end up in Spain.

Argentina’s offer to pay billions to settle a dispute with a group of hedge fund investors led by the billionaire Paul E. Singer may have been a victory for both the South American nation and the hedge funds, but it has left many small bondholders out in the cold, the New York Times DealBook blog reported yesterday. Lawyers for bondholders that were not included in the $4.65 billion deal Argentina made with the holdout hedge funds have argued that they will get far worse terms if they agree to a separate $6.5 billion proposal that Argentina made on Feb. 5. Singer’s NML Capital will have made about 369 percent, or $2.4 billion, on defaulted bonds whose principal value was $617 million, according to data from the finance ministry of Argentina that was filed to the court on Monday. Bracebridge Capital, another holdout hedge fund, will be paid $1.15 billion, representing a 952 percent return on bonds with principal worth $120 million, according to the data.

Argentina has agreed to pay $4.65 billion to four hedge funds on Monday in a deal that could put an end to more than a decade of mudslinging and legal attacks, the New York Times reported today. The hedge funds, which include the billionaire Paul E. Singer’s NML Capital, are the last among of group of investors that declared legal war on Argentina in the United States 12 years ago. These holdouts, so named for their refusal to partake in Argentina’s two restructurings after it defaulted on $100 billion of debt in 2001, sought billions in bond repayments and eventually succeeded in preventing Argentina from paying any of its creditors. The four hedge funds, including Aurelius, a hedge fund run by Mark Brodsky, a former trader at Singer’s Elliott Management; Davidson Kempner, and Bracebridge Capital, have agreed not to try to prevent Argentina from raising new money. The deal will also depend on whether Argentina’s legislature will repeal domestic laws that prevents the government from paying holdouts.

Powa Technologies, an e-commerce startup valued at $2.7 billion just a few months ago, went bankrupt on Friday, CNNMoney.com reported yesterday. London-based Powa had been hailed as the crown jewel of British tech scene. Its CEO Dan Wagner boasted that Powa would become "the biggest tech firm in living memory." Powa created a mobile payment app and point of sale terminals for retailers. Wagner's goal was to create a payment system that would provide a "seamless experience across all purchase channels." In 2013, Powa secured what was then one of the biggest investments ever for a British startup. It raised $175 million in just a year and half, with Boston-based Wellington Management among the leading investors.

Abengoa SA put its U.S. bioenergy unit into chapter 11 protection yesterday with up to $10 billion in liabilities, the latest twist in the multinational parent's race to avoid becoming Spain's largest corporate failure, Reuters reported. The U.S. filing came as the Spanish company faced a March 28 deadline to agree on a wide-ranging restructuring plan with its banks and bondholders, without which it could be forced to declare bankruptcy. The filing by Abengoa Bioenergy US Holding LLC was prompted by involuntary bankruptcy petitions against two subsidiaries earlier this month by grain suppliers, including Gavilon Grain LLC, the Farmers Cooperative Association, The Andersons Inc. and Central Valley Ag. The suppliers, which claim to be owed more than $4 million, said they were told that Abengoa Bioenergy, whose Spanish parent controls the "central treasury," had run out of cash, court documents showed.

A U.S. federal judge said that he is prepared to lift an injunction that has prevented Argentina from returning to the international capital markets, paving the way for a potential settlement with bondholders who have battled Argentina for years, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. The decision is welcome news for Argentina and President Mauricio Macri, who has made resolving the long-running dispute a priority. A group of U.S. bondholders, led by billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp., have been wrangling with Argentina over payment on its defaulted government debt. Argentina has been effectively barred from raising money in the international bond markets since its default in 2001 on more than $80 billion in government bonds, the largest sovereign default at the time. The new administration views a global bond offering as crucial for raising capital to stimulate an economy mired in recession. “The injunctions, once appropriate to address the Republic’s recalcitrance, can no longer be justified,” U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa wrote Friday in his ruling.

A group of hedge funds fighting to stop Argentina from paying other debt holders before them isn’t backing down, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The hedge funds yesterday urged a U.S. judge to keep in place injunctions blocking Argentina from paying its restructured debt before the country pays them what they’re owed on defaulted bonds. Dropping the injunctions “would upend the negotiations that only now are just beginning in earnest and would risk new and unwanted litigation," funds led by Paul Singer’s NML Capital argued in a court filing in Manhattan. Argentina told the judge last week that a court-ordered ban is no longer needed after it reached agreements this month to resolve claims on defaulted bonds with billionaire Kenneth Dart’s EM Ltd. and Montreux Partners. The funds say that the injunctions are necessary to keep Argentina’s new president, Mauricio Macri, at the bargaining table. They dispute Argentina’s claim that settlement talks have made substantial progress.

A German insolvency administrator has asked a bankruptcy court in New York to shield the U.S. assets of Maple Bank GmbH while its affairs are sorted, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Michael C. Frege, who has been appointed Maple Bank’s insolvency administrator in Germany, filed a chapter 15 bankruptcy case on Monday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York. That followed a move by Canadian banking regulators to take control of Maple Bank’s assets in Canada to preserve them after an investigation in Germany found what the regulators believed to be tax-law violations, according to a statement from Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions. Canada’s Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions took action after insolvency proceedings began in the courts of Germany.