Debt Coverage:

Debt Coverage:

MercoPress: “As the US before IMF lines up behind Argentina in the
litigation with hedge funds”

Bloomberg: “IMF Staff Suggests Tighter Debt Rules to Improve Restructuring”

Reuters: “Rating agencies alert to Argentina debt ruling, souring economy”

Bloomberg: “Citigroup Seeks Ruling on Argentine Bond Ruling’s Effect”

Financial Times: “Pari passu’s peso problem?”

Argentine Economy/Business:

Reuters: “Rating agencies alert to Argentina debt ruling, souring economy”

MercoPress: “Argentina’s trade surplus shrank 38% in April as imports soar 32%”

Reuters: “Argentina's Corporacion America seeks Brazil airport deals”

Wall Street Journal: “Argentina 'Blue' Dollar Rebounds; Bonds Mixed”

Wall Street Journal: “Telecom Argentina to Launch Share Buyback Program”

Argentine Politics:

Buenos Aires Herald: “Kirchnerites ready for May 25 demonstration”

Financial Times: “Bad vibes spoil Kirchners’ decade in Argentina”

New York Times: “Dumb and Dumber”

Wall Street Journal: “Argentina Senate Approves Controversial Tax Amnesty”

Buenos Aires Herald: “Another lost decade”


MercoPress
As the US before IMF lines up behind Argentina in the litigation with
hedge funds

A decision of that kind could create ‘problems’ to other debt
restructuring processes and discourage creditors to participate,
according to a document from the IMF legal department.

The document points out to two main problems that would be of two
kinds, but all of them stemming from the ‘power’ that such
ratification would give the so called ‘holdouts’. That is bond holders
who refused to accept the exchange offered by Argentina in 2005 and
2010, and which finally included 93% of creditors with defaulted
sovereign bonds from the 2001/02 crisis.


Bloomberg
IMF Staff Suggests Tighter Debt Rules to Improve Restructuring

Thursday, May 23, 2013

By Sandrine Rastello

The International Monetary Fund may have been too optimistic in
assessing the debt sustainability of some borrowing countries and
could toughen loan conditions in an effort to make debt restructuring
more successful, according to the fund’s staff.

Sovereign debt restructuring cases in recent years have often come
“too little and too late,” IMF economists and legal experts wrote in a
report published today. The Washington-based fund came under pressure
at times from other public-sector creditors to accept delays in
restructuring and should consider changes to its assessment rules,
they wrote.


Reuters
Rating agencies alert to Argentina debt ruling, souring economy

Friday, May 24, 2013

By Hilary Burke

(Reuters) - Argentina's dismal credit ratings might get a boost if
U.S. courts rule in the country's favor in a long-running dispute with
creditors over a 2002 default, but souring economic conditions could
hold the ratings back, credit analysts said.

Argentina is still struggling with the fallout from its roughly $100
billion sovereign debt default 11 years ago. It has not tapped global
credit markets since then, mainly because of lawsuits by "holdout"
creditors who rejected debt swaps accepted by nearly 93 percent of
bondholders and sought full repayment.


Bloomberg
Citigroup Seeks Ruling on Argentine Bond Ruling’s Effect

Thursday, May 23, 2013

By Bob Van Voris and Patricia Hurtado

Citigroup Inc. (C), whose Citibank unit is the local custodian for
some holders of Argentine bonds, asked a U.S. judge to make clear that
it isn’t affected by his order barring payments to holders of
restructured debt unless holders of defaulted bonds are also paid.

Citibank yesterday asked U.S. District Judge Thomas Griesa in
Manhattan for a ruling clarifying earlier decisions in a case against
Argentina led by Elliott Management Corp.’s NML Capital. Citibank,
which said its Argentina branch is custodian for bonds issued under
that country’s laws that are to be paid within Argentina, isn’t a
party to the NML suit.


Financial Times
Pari passu’s peso problem?

Thursday, May 23, 2013

By Joseph Cotterill

Hat-tip to Bloomberg — it looks like we have a new entrant in the pari
passu saga.

Citibank.

Technically it’s Citibank’s Argentine branch. They’ve made a slightly
curious request for ‘clarification’ of Judge Griesa’s order last
November for Argentina to pay bond holdouts alongside other,
restructured creditors. (Payments just to the latter could be seized,
and ultimately launch Argentina into a sovereign default… just to
catch you up.)


Reuters
Rating agencies alert to Argentina debt ruling, souring economy

Friday, May 24, 2013

By Hilary Burke

(Reuters) - Argentina's dismal credit ratings might get a boost if
U.S. courts rule in the country's favor in a long-running dispute with
creditors over a 2002 default, but souring economic conditions could
hold the ratings back, credit analysts said.

Argentina is still struggling with the fallout from its roughly $100
billion sovereign debt default 11 years ago. It has not tapped global
credit markets since then, mainly because of lawsuits by "holdout"
creditors who rejected debt swaps accepted by nearly 93 percent of
bondholders and sought full repayment.


MercoPress
Argentina’s trade surplus shrank 38% in April as imports soar 32%

Friday, May 24, 2013

The Argentine economy has cooled steadily after booming during most of
the last decade. Most economists blame soft external demand, high
inflation, budget deficit and the negative impact of currency controls
and import curbs on investment.

Imports jumped 32% in April from a year earlier to 6.41bn due to
increased volumes since prices declined, the INDEC institute said.
This big rise was driven by automobiles, consumer goods and capital
goods.


Reuters
Argentina's Corporacion America seeks Brazil airport deals

Thursday, May 23, 2013

By Guido Nejamkis

(Reuters) - Argentina's Corporacion America plans to participate in
bidding on international airport concessions in the Brazilian cities
of Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte in September, the company's chief
executive said on Thursday.

Brazil is scrambling to upgrade its inefficient, dilapidated and
overcrowded airports before it hosts the 32-nation World Cup next
year, which is expected to draw more than half a million soccer fans
to South America's economic powerhouse.


Wall Street Journal
Argentina 'Blue' Dollar Rebounds; Bonds Mixed

Thursday, May 23, 2013

By Shane Romig

BUENOS AIRES --Argentina's black-market dollar bounced back on
Thursday, snapping a seven-day losing streak which had followed
pressure from the government to drive down the spread between the
official and black-market rate.

The black-market dollar, commonly referred to as the "blue,"
strengthened to ARS8.80 to the U.S. dollar Thursday, compared to
ARS8.45 a day earlier, according to financial daily El Cronista.


Wall Street Journal
Telecom Argentina to Launch Share Buyback Program

Friday, May 24, 2013

BUENOS AIRES--Argentine telecommunications company Telecom Argentina
SA (TEO, TECO2.BA) plans to buy back up to ARS1.2 billion ($229
million) worth of its own shares, the company said in an exchange
filing Thursday.

The plan, which will run through April 24, will buy back shares
representing up to 10% of the company's market capitalization.

Profits booked in 2012 will be used for the buyback at a price of
between ARS1 and ARS32.50 per share, Telecom said.

Telecom Argentina shares fell 0.9% to ARS27 on Thursday.


Buenos Aires Herald
Kirchnerites ready for May 25 demonstration

Friday, May 24, 2013

It won’t be just a national holiday. The “massive celebration” that
the Cristina Fernández de Kirchner administration plans to hold
tomorrow afternoon can also be read as a government relaunch in a time
of crisis.

The day will mark not only the 203rd anniversary of the May Revolution
but also a decade since former president Néstor Kirchner came to power
and main Kirchnerite leaders expressed it was about time to show some
support after a couple of months filled with political battles and
corruption accusations.


Financial Times
Bad vibes spoil Kirchners’ decade in Argentina

Thursday, May 23, 2013

By Jude Webber

Ten years ago on Saturday, with Argentina emerging from the economic
and social ruin of its $100bn sovereign default and swingeing
devaluation, a little-known provincial governor with a lisp and a hook
nose donned the presidential sash and vowed that “a form of politics
and a way of running the state is over”.

And so began “Kirchnerismo” and a decade of nationalist tub-thumping
populism started by Néstor Kirchner and deepened by his wife, and
successor, Cristina Fernández that led Argentina first back to
prosperity, but then into trouble.


New York Times
Dumb and Dumber

Friday, May 24, 2013

By Daniel Politi

BUENOS AIRES — A person who cheats on taxes in Argentina is often
described as vivo, or clever. There’s a certain admiration for those
who break the rules: It isn’t difficult to see why when those who
follow them often look like fools.

This was made clear again earlier this month, when President Cristina
Fernández de Kirchner’s economic team unveiled a tax amnesty plan to
legalize undeclared foreign currency, whether stored in offshore tax
havens or under the mattress, without imposing any penalties. So much
for the pledge by Kirchner’s late husband and predecessor Néstor to
jail tax evaders.


Wall Street Journal
Argentina Senate Approves Controversial Tax Amnesty

Thursday, May 23, 2013

By Ken Parks

BUENOS AIRES--Argentina's Senate has passed controversial legislation
that would give Argentines the opportunity to legally declare billions
of dollars in foreign currency they are thought to have hidden from
the tax authorities if they invest those funds in the economy.

The ruling FPV party and its allies passed the bill late Wednesday
night with 39 votes in favor and 28 votes against. The FPV-dominated
Lower House is expected to swiftly approve the bill next week.

The tax amnesty looks set to clear Congress weeks after the
administration of President Cristina Kirchner sponsored the bill in
early May.


Buenos Aires Herald
Another lost decade

Thursday, May 23, 2013

By James Neilson

Cristina tells us that, thanks to her and her late husband, Argentina
has at long last been blessed with a “decade won” marked by increasing
prosperity, equality, national pride and many other excellent things.
Few would agree. Though on the whole the country is better off than it
was in 2002, the year zero, just before the Patagonians took command,
in which much of the economy, accompanied by most people’s living
standards, seemed about to be swallowed by a financial black hole,
Cristina’s “project” has clearly failed. But then, so did all previous
“projects” with the exception of the one that was undertaken towards
the end of the 19th century when Argentina took its place in the
British world order and flourished as an exporter of farm products.
When the Pax Britannica gave way to the Pax Americana, Argentina’s
leaders, much like their counterparts in Italy, decided that fascism
was the wave of the future. They were wrong, but, as a surprisingly
large number of fairly bright people refused to admit it, since the
Second World War ended it has been downhill all the way


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