In “Mysterious” Bond Sale, Venezuela Issues $5 Billion In Debt To Itself With China As Underwriter

While Venezuela CDS suggest the country’s default odds remain well over 90%, and its currency on the black market continues to plunge into the abyss of hyperinflation, something odd happened today: Venezuela’s government issued $5 billion in dollar debt for the first time in more than five years, selling bonds in an opaque transaction to the state bank Banco de Venezuela SA and the central bank, Reuters and Bloomberg report. What makes this “unorthodox operation” particularly strange, is that the government is effectively selling debt, and raising dollar funds from itself – it owns both the Banco de Venezuela and the central bank; it is also strange in that the transaction, according to Reuters, does not immediately bring in new funds for the cash-strapped OPEC nation.
State-run Banco de Venezuela bought the dollar-denominated notes issued on December 29, which had a 6.5% coupon and mature in 2036, in local currency at a heavily subsidized exchange rate of 10 bolivars per dollar, according to a Reuters source, meaning there was no net increase in hard currency for state coffers. The country’s exchange control system sells dollars at 10 bolivars for preferential goods such as food and medicine and for 672 bolivars for other items. Dollars on the black market currently fetch close to 3,200 bolivars.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Jan 2, 2017.