OGX
Said Planning to Miss $44.5 Million Bond Payment - (www.bloomberg.com) Eike Batista’s decision to postpone payments on local bonds
issued by his Brazilian oil producer OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes SA means the company doesn’t plan to pay an
Oct. 1 coupon on dollar debt, according to two people with direct knowledge of
the plan. The OGX Austria unit, which holds all of the 2.1 billion reais ($932
million) in local notes, agreed to postpone a Sept. 25 payment for an
undisclosed amount until March 25, Rio de Janeiro-based OGX said in a
regulatory filing yesterday. Non-payment of the securities, sold to the
offshore unit as a way of avoiding taxes on international payments, means OGX
won’t pay a $44.5 million dollar debt coupon, the people said, asking not to be
named as the plan hasn’t been made public. The decision not to pay the coupon
on $1.06 billion of dollar notes due 2022 moves Batista’s flagship company
closer to Latin
America’s
largest corporate default on record. The former billionaire is seeking to
renegotiate debt and keep OGX afloat after some of the offshore deposits he had
valued at $1 trillion turned out to be duds, triggering a selloff that wiped
out about $30 billion of his personal fortune.
Retirement in a nutshell for many today: Not
happening - (www.washingtonpost.com) It seems like another life. At the height of
his career, Tom Palome was pulling in a salary in the low six figures and
flying first class to Europe on business. Today, the 77-year-old former vice
president of marketing for Oral-B juggles two part-time jobs: one as a
$10-an-hour food demonstrator at Sam’s Club, the other flipping burgers at a
golf club grill for slightly more than minimum wage. While Palome had a
successful career, paid off his mortgage and put his kids through college, like
most Americans he didn’t save enough for retirement. Even many affluent baby
boomers approaching the end of their careers haven’t come close to saving the
10 to 20 times their annual working income that investment experts say they’ll
need to maintain their standard of living. For middle-class households, with
incomes ranging from the middle five to low six figures, it’s especially grim.
When the 2008 financial crisis hit, what little Palome had saved — $90,000 —
took a beating and he suddenly found himself in need of cash. With years, if
not decades, of life ahead of him, Palome took the jobs he could find.
Portuguese
punish ruling party for bailout pain in local polls - (www.reuters.com) Portuguese
voters punished the ruling Social Democrats for painful austerity under an
EU/IMF bailout, boosting opposition and independent candidates in municipal
elections on Sunday. Preliminary results and exit poll projections showed
Antonio Costa from the main opposition Socialists was reelected mayor of Lisbon
by a landslide, winning more than half the votes cast - an improvement of up to
10 percentage points on his 2009 result. Independent candidate Rui Moreira
became mayor of the country's second-largest city Porto, taking the post from
the Social Democratic Party (PSD), which came a distant third.
Spain's
public debt to approach 100 percent of GDP end-2014 - (www.reuters.com) Spain's
debt will rise to almost 100 percent of national output by the end of next
year, the highest level in more than a century, according to the 2014 budget
proposal handed to Parliament on Monday. The ratio of debt-to-gross domestic
product (GDP) will rise to 99.8 percent by the end of 2014 from 94.2 percent at
the end of 2013. Debt stood at 92.2 percent of GDP at end-June. Spain's public
debt has almost tripled since a decade-long property bubble burst in 2008,
sending the country into a five-year long economic slump. It is expected to
continue rising for at least another three years. That will keep adding to
Spain's debt servicing costs at a time when it is fighting to reduce one of the
euro zone's highest public deficits.
Why Judges Are Scowling at Banks - (www.nytimes.com) LAST week, for the first time since the
financial crisis, the government faced off in court against a major bank over
lending practices during the mortgage mania. Lawyers for the Justice Department
contend that Countrywide Financial, a unit of Bank of America,
misrepresented the quality of mortgages it sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,
the taxpayer-owned mortgage finance giants, starting in 2007. Fannie and
Freddie incurred gross losses of $850 million on the defective loans and net
losses of $131 million, the government said. Bank of America disagrees. Its
lawyers say that Countrywide did not defraud Fannie or Freddie. This case is
undoubtedly big, but it is only one of many mortgage-related matters inching
through the judicial system. And what is notable about some of the
lower-profile matters is the tone and tack that federal judges are taking in
their rulings. District court judges are not generally known as flamethrowers,
but some seem to be losing patience with the banks.
Berlusconi
faces party revolt over Italy political crisis - (www.reuters.com)
China Factory Gauge Unexpectedly Misses Preliminary Estimate - (www.bloomberg.com)
China Factory Gauge Unexpectedly Misses Preliminary Estimate - (www.bloomberg.com)
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