Not to worry. Our most effective weapon, the Anerican investment banker, is hard at work:
"The Financial Times has learned that significant profits deriving from the bond transactions are being accumulated by a few private banks, rather than by the Chávez government."
Andy Webb-Vidal reports in the Financial Times:
Backed by record oil revenues, Venezuela has bought $1.6bn in Argentine debt during the past year - mostly dollar-denominated Boden bonds maturing in 2012. They were purchased in auctions that were eschewed, in some cases, by big investment banks, such as Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, because the yields offered were considered too low.
Venezuela, which has been the largest buyer of Argentine sovereign debt since the country defaulted on itsforeign debt in 2001, has said it is ready to buy up to $2.4bn worth of Argentine bonds.
It has also bought $25m of Ecuadorean debt and finance minister Nelson Merentes recently said he was looking at buying Brazilian and Chinese bonds.
Investment banks Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank are reportedly advising on the bond transactions.
Mr Chávez justifies his virtual "hedge fund" as a benevolent concept that will allow Latin American nations such as Argentina to "liberate' themselves from an international financial system that, he asserts, is manipulated by the US. . . .
Venezuela's bond purchases have helped Argentina increase its foreign reserves. President Nestor Kirchner's government last month paid off its outstanding $9.5bn debt to theInternational Monetary Fund, in part thanks tothe cash injection from Mr Chávez.
"Whilst the [bond] purchases are good news for the Argentine government, the benefits for Venezuela are less clear," said Vitali Meschoulam, emerging markets strategist at HSBC Securities in New York.
The Financial Times has learned that significant profits deriving from the bond transactions are being accumulated by a few private banks, rather than by the Chávez government. |
