Brazilian telephone carrier Oi SA said yesterday that a judge in Lisbon had decided against validating the company’s restructuring plan in Portugal for now, adding that the decision will not keep the plan from going into effect, Reuters reported. In a securities filing, Oi said that a judge determined that there are outstanding appeals related to the firm’s restructuring of 65 billion reais ($17.4 billion) in debt that must be resolved before the Portuguese court signs off on the plan. Oi added that the decision was rooted in formalities, not on the merits of the restructuring plan, which was approved by the company’s creditors in December. The firm also said that it would appeal the decision.
The secretary general of the United Nations said that its cash supply has been severely depleted because of what he described as delayed contributions by many member states, and he warned the organization’s employees that they must find ways to cut expenses, The New York Times reported. “Our cash flow has never been this low so early in the calendar year, and the broader trend is also concerning,” Secretary General António Guterres said. “We are running out of cash sooner and staying in the red longer.” According to a tally known as the “honor roll” on the United Nations website, 112 of the organization’s 193 members have paid their annual assessments in full. The U.S., by far the biggest single contributor at 22 percent of the budget, has not yet paid, but diplomats said the Americans typically completed their payments toward the end of the year. Guterres did not single out any particular country among the 81 that had not yet paid, and he acknowledged that countries followed different fiscal calendars. Nonetheless, he said, “this new cash shortfall is unlike those we have experienced previously.” Under Article 19 of the United Nations Charter, if a member is in arrears in an amount that equals or exceeds the assessment due for the previous two years, that member could forfeit its General Assembly vote unless there are extenuating circumstances. Guterres said that he had appealed to those members who had not yet paid their annual assessments to do so “on time and in full,” and that he had “highlighted the risk the current situation poses to the delivery of mandates and to the reputation of our organization.”
President Donald Trump said that the U.S. and the European Union should eliminate all tariffs, barriers and subsidies, with the bloc’s trade chiefs set to present him with proposals in that direction in a crunch meeting at the White House later today, Bloomberg reported. “I have an idea for them. Both the U.S. and the E.U. drop all Tariffs, Barriers and Subsidies!” Trump said in a tweet. “That would finally be called Free Market and Fair Trade! Hope they do it, we are ready - but they won’t!” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom are due to meet with President Trump in Washington on Wednesday. They plan to signal the bloc’s willingness to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement with the U.S. on manufactured goods, or a so-called plurilateral sectoral agreement between all major car exporters that would cut or eliminate tariffs on automobiles globally. The overtures are a last-ditch attempt to dissuade him from imposing tariffs on European car exports to the U.S. in what could deal a serious blow to the 28-nation bloc’s economy. The Stoxx 600 Automobiles & Parts Index fell by 1.4 percent at 1:03 p.m. in Brussels ahead of the meeting. “We are here to explain and find out how to prevent a trade war,” Juncker said, adding that he’s not overly optimistic. The EU is prepared to retaliate “immediately” if talks fail, he warned. The commission is preparing a list of retaliatory measures on American goods worth $20 billion should the U.S. impose car tariffs, Malmstrom said. “It would be more general, like farming goods, machines, high-technology products and others,” she said.
Steinhoff International Holdings NV won support from a majority of creditors to restructure its 9.4 billion euros ($11 billion) of debt, seen by the embattled retailer as a vital step toward its recovery from an accounting scandal, Bloomberg News reported. The owner of Conforama in France and Mattress Firm in the U.S. sought a three-year extension to payments due to lenders and bondholders as the South African company repairs its balance sheet. About 89 percent of holders of debt in Steinhoff Europe AG agreed to the terms and the retailer will seek to wrap up the plan by the Friday deadline. Between 92 percent and 99 percent of holders of convertible bonds due 2021, 2022 and 2023 issued out of Steinhoff Finance Holding GmbH backed the plan, while holders of 89 percent of Stripes US Holding Inc. debt signed the agreement. The company still needs to complete final steps before the lock-up agreement with creditors becomes effective, Steinhoff said.
Some investors in funds managed by Dubai-based Abraaj want to block the sale of assets to Colony Capital pending a review of Abraaj’s handling of funds, according to a report seen by Reuters, potentially delaying a deal key to the survival of the investment management business. U.S.-based Colony offered last month to buy the fund management unit that runs Abraaj’s Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa and Turkey funds after months of turmoil at Abraaj triggered by a dispute with investors over the use of their money in a $1 billion healthcare fund. Abraaj denies any wrongdoing, but the row has weighed heavily on the Middle East and Africa’s largest private equity firm, which filed for provisional liquidation in the Cayman Islands last month. A review of Abraaj’s handling of investor money is likely to delay the Colony transaction, according to a report by Abraaj Holdings’ provisional liquidators, PwC.
ConocoPhillips Co. asked a New York federal court on Friday to seize control of billions of dollars in legal claims asserted by Venezuela’s indebted state oil company against foreign oil traders, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Houston-based ConocoPhillips sued a legal trust created to bring multibillion-dollar commercial tort claims on behalf of Petroleós de Venezuela SA, or PdVSA, surrounding an alleged corruption scheme involving dozens of oil trading companies, banks and individuals. PdVSA set up the trust as a vehicle for prosecuting those claims, earmarking 66 percent of the potential proceeds for New York law firms that agreed to front legal costs. The remaining 34 percent is available to PdVSA, the trust’s beneficiary. ConocoPhillips said that the arrangement is designed to evade PdVSA’s creditors, shielding the legal claims from seizure while eventually repatriating any recoveries back to Venezuela.
