LONDON/NEW YORK (July 13): The scale of Venezuela’s debt burden — and the mix of creditors holding it — will help determine the losses investors face in what could be one of the largest sovereign debt restructurings in history.
Venezuela has not published comprehensive debt statistics in years, and 2017 sanctions largely isolated it from the Western financial world. Caracas has said it aimed to complete a full debt assessment by the end of June. Investors now expect it this month, but it is unclear if it will be shared more broadly.
Most analysts estimated debts of US$150–US$200 billion, but the Financial Times reported Venezuela was set to unveil a larger-than-expected debt pile of US$240 billion.
Here are some details on what…