It’s Time to Ditch Venezuela Debt, UBS Wealth Management Says
- Firm says rally after index inclusion offers a moment to sell
- Sovereign, PDVSA debt has risen since October sanction rejig
By Maria Elena Vizcaino and Nicolle Yapur
(Bloomberg) -- UBS Wealth Management is urging investors to ditch Venezuelan debt after JPMorgan Chase & Co. unveiled a plan to return the securities to its key emerging-market bond indexes.
Money managers have an opportunity to sell their holdings of defaulted bonds from Venezuela’s government and state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA after sanctions relief and the index inclusion spurred a rally in the debt, Pedro Quintanilla-Dieck, Alejo Czerwonko and Donald McLauchlan wrote in a note to clients this week.
The notes have risen since October, when the Biden administration lifted a trading ban that kept US investors from buying the debt for over four years. They briefly extended gains last week after JPMorgan said it would re-weight the notes in the Emerging Market Bond Index series over three months starting April 30.
Sovereign notes due in 2027 have jumped by 8 cents to around 19 cents on the dollar since the US granted sanction relief in October, according to traders and indicative pricing data compiled by Bloomberg. PDVSA debt due in 2026 notes have gone from 6 to around 10 cents in the same period, the data show.
To UBS Wealth Management, the advance offers money managers an attractive moment to liquidate positions in the bonds ahead of an unpredictable presidential vote and further US foreign policy decisions.
Even if forced buying tied to the index inclusion helps to buoy the notes in the near-term, “there remains significant uncertainty regarding the status of the Venezuelan economy and its longer-term ability to service debt,” they wrote.
Questions also remain surrounding a potential debt restructuring — as long as Venezuela’s election meets the standards needed for the US to consider further sanction relief, according to UBS Wealth Management.
“Even if a restructuring eventually takes place, we think this could kick off one of the most complex sovereign debt restructurings in history, plagued with legal challenges,” they wrote.
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