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A U.S. judge has granted a Canadian company the right to go after prized U.S. assets belonging to Venezuela, in a bid to get paid on an $1.4 billion award tied to the 2008 nationalization of its gold mining operations by the now cash-strapped South American country, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Leonard Stark in Delaware on Thursday granted a so-called writ of attachment to Crystallex International Corp in shares of Citgo Holding, which owns a U.S.-based oil refiner controlled by state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA). Judge Stark also imposed a temporary stay on Crystallex enforcing the writ to give other parties a chance to weigh in. The judge ruled on Aug. 9 that Citgo Holding assets were subject to attachment. PDVSA said it would appeal. Other companies may also lay claims on the assets, and the writ does not mean Crystallex will take over Citgo and run its refineries.

Reliance Communications Ltd., the company controlled by Indian billionaire Anil Ambani is in the midst of restructuring the $300 million U.S. currency notes and plans to meet those bondholders on Aug. 24 to seek approval on extraordinary resolutions, Bloomberg News reported. Those talks come ahead of a Aug. 27 deadline set by the India’s central bank for firms with delinquent accounts and under other conditions to implement resolution plans with local lenders to stave off insolvency proceedings. The timing is tight for Reliance Communications. Its onshore lenders will agree to a restructuring only if they know that the dollar bonds are also being restructured, in line with so-called inter-conditional agreements on debt. The outcome of the talks this month may sway how much the company’s debt holders will get repaid in the end. India’s large delinquent borrowers face an Aug. 27 deadline to put in place a resolution plan, as the nation’s regulator pushes its lenders to recast and clean up $210 billion of bad loans in their balance sheets. Reliance Communications’ default was India’s most high-profile one on international debt since the nation’s insolvency and bankruptcy code was passed in May 2016, and its debt talks are being closely watched.

While yesterday marked the symbolic end of Greece’s international financial bailout, many Greeks won't be celebrating the end to the eurozone’s long debt crisis, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Athens government hails the end of the bailout as a historic day when Greece recovers its national freedom and independence. European Union officials hold up Greece’s graduation from its bailout as proof that the bloc’s much-criticized crisis management succeeded. But many Greeks find it hard to believe that this truly is the end of an era. Pessimism and anger prevail in much of Greek society, after a decade of economic depression that has left people exhausted and disillusioned. Greece’s bailout programs since 2010, totaling around €290 billion ($331 billion) of emergency loans from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund, are the biggest financial rescue of a stricken sovereign in history. In return for loans, creditors made Greece shut a budget deficit that had ballooned to more than 15 percent of gross domestic product in 2009, leading to the collapse of Greece’s bond market. The state now has a small budget surplus. But the austerity measures to achieve it — totaling €72 billion, or around 40 percent of GDP — accelerated the country’s slump.

Dubai’s financial services regulator has stopped Abraaj Capital from taking on new business or moving money to Abraaj Investment Management (AIML), its related entity, as part of an investigation into the group, Reuters reported. “Given the onset of financial difficulties of the wider Abraaj Group, the DFSA has been closely monitoring the activities of its regulated entity ACL,” Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) said yesterday. It is the first time that DFSA has said publicly that it is investigating Abraaj, which faces allegations by some investors of misusing their money in a $1 billion healthcare fund. Abraaj has denied any wrongdoing, but the allegations triggered a solvency crisis at the Middle East and Africa’s largest buyout fund, and threatened to dent Dubai’s reputation.

Toys “R” Us Inc. has officially closed its U.S. operations, but two key sales are still ongoing for the troubled retailer as it tries to find buyers for its intellectual property and Asian business, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Despite court papers and lawyers touting robust interest and lucrative bids, the auctions have yet to take place as there have been considerable delays to the sale timelines. In April, weeks after Toys “R” Us announced it would close its more than 800 stores in the U.S. and wind down its business, company attorneys said during a court hearing that the Asian business was beckoning bids of more than $1 billion. Interested bidders were said to be looking to buy an 85 percent stake in the Asian operations. The Asian business, although often brought up during court hearings, went without an official bid, until last week.

Samuels Jewelers Inc., a Texas-based chain that was controlled by Mehul Chinubhai Choksi, the uncle of fugitive jewelry designer Nirav Modi, has filed for chapter 11 protection, the Wall Street Journal reported. Choksi and Modi are both wanted by Indian authorities, who are investigating an alleged multibillion-dollar bank fraud. Modi’s U.S. jewelry businesses have been in bankruptcy since February and largely have been sold off. Samuels, which operates more than 120 jewelry stores in the U.S., has called in liquidators to start selling off inventory to pay off debts of more than $100 million, according to papers filed yesterday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del. Court papers also say that there are plans to close more than 100 stores. Samuels owes $84 million to banks led by Wells Fargo Bank N.A., $10 million to GB Credit Partners LLC, and has debt to suppliers of goods and services of more than $28 million, according to court papers.

Senior lenders to Toys “R” Us Inc. will make an opening bid of $760 million for the bankrupt retailer’s Asia operations, far less than the $1 billion offers the company touted just a few months ago, Bloomberg News reported. The lenders would make a so-called "credit bid" by using their senior secured notes in the Asia business rather than cash, and win ownership of the unit during an auction next month in New York, according to court documents filed Saturday. Noteholders eligible to participate include York Capital Management Global Advisors LLC, Barclays Bank Plc and Cerberus Capital Management LP, related court papers show. Before an auction is scheduled, Toys wants a U.S. federal judge to strip the company’s minority partner in Asia, Fung Retailing Ltd., of its right-of-first-refusal purchase option as well as forcing Fung to agree to sell its 15 percent stake in the joint venture. Toys’s 12 percent first-lien bonds that mature in 2021 fell more than 5 cents to 70.5 cents on the dollar on Monday, the biggest drop since they were issued in 2016, according to Trace bond price data. In April, a lawyer for Toys told the judge overseeing the company’s bankruptcy that it had multiple bids worth more than $1 billion for the Asia business. Toys owns nearly 85 percent of the venture and Fung owns the rest. Read more. 

Need more insight into credit bidding in bankruptcy? Pick up a copy of ABI’s Credit Bidding in Bankruptcy Sales: A Guide for Lenders, Creditors, and Distressed-Debt Investors. 

Norwegian drillship and rig operator Fred. Olsen Energy, owner of the yard that built the RMS Titanic, said that it is considering a debt and equity restructuring that would almost wipe out the value of its current shares, Reuters reported. With debt and liabilities of more than $840 million at the end of June, Fred. Olsen last month stopped paying its creditors to preserve liquidity, making it the latest victim of a slow recovery in the oil and gas exploration sector. The owner of seven drillships and rigs, as well as Belfast’s Harland & Wolff yard, has now received indicative, non-binding proposals from equity investors valuing its current shares and bonds at just $10 million, it said in a statement.

Investors in a $1.6 billion-Abraaj Group fund have hired advisory firm Alvarez & Marsal Holdings LLC to help recover money owed by the floundering Middle Eastern private equity firm, Bloomberg News reported. The New York-based company will represent Abraaj Private Equity Fund IV’s backers in talks with liquidators as they seek to recover more than $99 million owed by the Dubai-based buyout firm. The stakeholders have formed an investor committee led by Boston-based HarbourVest Partners. Alvarez will also represent the fund if it’s elected to a liquidators’ committee for Abraaj Investment Management Ltd., which is the buyout firm’s asset management business. Representatives for Alvarez and HarbourVest declined to comment. Court-appointed liquidators Deloitte LLP and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP are trying to settle more than $1 billion of debt owed by Abraaj, once one of the most influential emerging-market investors until its dramatic collapse this year. The private equity firm is undergoing a court-supervised restructuring after it was found to have borrowed money from some of its own funds to meet operating expenses without investors’ consent.