Which is what I am pleased to report. The Venezuela Office of National Public Credit tweeted midday that it had now paid the bonds.

 

21 September 2017

Look, we are good at what we do -- among the best, if not the best at covering Venezuela from the economic, business, investment and political side.

We follow the money. We pay attention to details. We note patterns and variations in patterned behavior.  We anticipate anticipations.

Did any of your other Venezuela analysts warn you on Friday, September 15 that the Venezuela 9.25% of 2027 payment may not be coming? (Five days before the press reported it, which we were also responsible for causing after we finally released our findings to them).  And of course, that press notice caused Venezuela to be embarrassed and finally hustle to get the bond paid today.

Which is what I am pleased to report.  The Venezuela Office of National Public Credit tweeted midday that it had now paid the bonds.

In short, after our data & pattern-generated hunch sent on Friday to our VIP clients and after our raising the alarm yesterday morning -- generating headlines about the timely payment failure in Bloomberg, Reuters and around the world -- I am pleased to inform you that Bloomberg is now reporting that the Bank of New York (which is the fiscal agent for the $4 billion Venezuela 9.25% of 9/15/2027) has received the $185 million necessary to pay the coupon.  

 

Two final things.  I have been getting questions from clients and reporters about who the Fiscal Agent and Trustee of the Venezuela 9.25% of 2027 bond is.  The Venezuela 2027 prospectus from 1997 originally had Chase in that role and the Bloomberg description page still has them listed as the responsible party.  (You can find the Venezuela 2027 Prospectus in our online library here).  

And Bloomberg's description page here:

Both are incorrect and out of date.  The Bank of New York is actually currently the Fiscal Agent, though they too have been trying to get out of that role since 2012.

Second, a moment for a victory lap. 

As this example indicates, we inform our clients of the news before it is news, but this is just one example. 

On August 10, for example, we informed our clients that Crystallex was seizing an account at Bank of New York (watch this space, by the way) and told the whole story.  Reuters would report that story on August 23, almost two weeks later.  Bloomberg wouldn't get around to reporting the story until almost 35 days later on September 15.

In June, we layed out almost exactly what was going to happen with Venezuela's Constituent Assembly in July, August and September in our groundbreaking report "Maduro's Hydrogen Bomb."  That blueprint was on the desk of and influenced top business and diplomatic leaders around the world. 

In May we alerted our VIP clients to the fact that there was a $1 billion hole in the Russia budget and we had crunched the numbers and concluded that there was a high probability that the shortfall was caused by Venezuela not honoring its (re-negotiated) payment obligations to the Russians for arms sales.  Reuters and Bloomberg would get around to reporting that news weeks later on June 13, which caused atleast one hedge fund to try to trigger the bond insurance CDS with an inquiry to ISDA.

On December 21, we helped uncover, investigate and break the news that Venezuela had mortgaged Citgo to Rosneft for the $1.5 billion that had saved PDVSA's bacon in November.   We would later be called upon by Congress to testify about it.

Thanks for letting us brag for a moment.

In the meantime -- and as always -- please don't hesitate to let me know if we can be of any assistance!

Thanks,

Russ