Hedge Funds Buy Up Venezuela’s Sanctioned Debt After Record Drop
- Most sovereign and PDVSA bonds dropped to record low in July
- U.S. sanctions have forced most trades to occur offshore
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London hedge funds, a private bank in Monaco and Uruguayan millionaires are among the bargain hunters bidding on Venezuelan bonds as some investors dump the debt to mirror its reduced index weight.
Funds from Europe and Latin America are swooping in amid rules that prevent Americans from buying the notes, according to brokers involved in the trades who asked not to be identified because they’re prohibited from discussing clients’ activity. With demand limited to overseas entities, prices for the defaulted debt have dropped to about 15 cents on the dollar from double that just months ago.