Puerto Rico in Distress

ABI Analysis

Fitch Ratings said yesterday that allowing Puerto Rico’s public corporations to file for chapter 9 protection would benefit holders of the agencies’ debt as well as the commonwealth, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. Pedro Pierluisi, a Democrat who represents Puerto Rico in the U.S. House, introduced a measure in July that would let the island’s agencies restructure debt in court. U.S.

Puerto Rico’s government-owned corporations could file for bankruptcy protection under a bill proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives by the delegate from the Caribbean territory, which is struggling to pay $73 billion in debt, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.

Lenders to Puerto Rico’s electric power authority are giving the beleaguered utility another two weeks before it has to make past-due payments on its lines of credit, the New York Times DealBook blog reported yesterday.

Momentum is building toward a deal that would make painful losses inevitable for investors holding about $20 billion in bonds issued by Puerto Rico's highway, water and electricity authorities, even as some big U.S. mutual funds launch a legal battle to squelch a new law that authorizes a restructuring, Reuters reported today.