Information regarding the business sector.
One day after the announcement of the agreement for the restructuring of Argentina’s foreign debt, Wall Street shares rose 4.4% to trade at $1.225 billion. In this way, the company’s valuation exceeds $60 billion, a historical record, and has accumulated rise of around 115% since December. Currently, the Argentine company has operations in more than 15 countries in the region.
The Argentine subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell announced yesterday an agreement with Transportadora de Gas del Sur (TGS) for the construction of a new gas treatment plant in the Bajada de Añelo block. The contract will be for a minimum term of two years and consists of the provision of midstream gas dehydration, filtering, regulation and measurement services with a capacity of up to 1 million cubic meters per day. The gas pipeline is 150 kilometres long, crosses 30 productive areas of the Vaca Muerta formation, and will allow transportation of up to 60 MMm3/d, which will condition at the plant built in Tratayen, before injection into the regulated transportation systems.
Techint carried out the 140 layoffs late on Friday and threatened a lockout at Siderca and SIAT. The dispute started when the conglomerate announced last week its intention to pay only 50% of the salary to its licensed personnel during the pandemic.
The Argentinean unicorn Globant (NYSE: GLOB) surprised the market on Monday with the announcement of the acquisition of Grupo Assa (gA), a global company in digital transformation and cloud services with presence in the US, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Spain, for a total investment of $74 million. The acquisition strengthens Globant’s cloud capabilities and allows it to expand its Healthcare and Life Sciences portfolio. Once the news was known, the company’s shares reached a historical record in the NYSE, climbing 4% to $179.87.
Vista, a company, created less than four years ago, has all its operations in Vaca Muerta. The collapse of oil consumption and the collapse of international prices doubly affected Vista, which reported losses of nearly $40 million in the second quarter of the year. Vista refinanced $75 million of upcoming maturities in 2020 and 2021. $45 million was extended for 18 months and corresponded to the syndicated loan with a consortium of banks, and $30 million represents to short-term bank debt that extended from 12 to 18 months.
Electricity distributor Edesur presented its balance sheet for the first half of the year, reflecting losses of 2.58 billion pesos ($35.85 mn) and a 50% inter-annual collapse in its investments, which the Board of Directors attributes mainly to the freezing of tariffs.
Adecoagro, Argentina’s largest milk producer, received a $100 million credit from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) a few weeks ago, which will use to make investments in the agro-food sector to double its milk production to 200 million litres a year. The firm, which listed on Wall Street, also has assets in Brazil and Uruguay.
In the same day, the company received praise from the British weekly The Economist and announced a $27 million investment in Mexico to open a distribution centre similar to the one it has in La Matanza in the state of Jalisco, with a capacity of 60,000 square meters, half of which will be operational in November. Yesterday the share value was parked at $982.30, with a fall of 3.47%, which placed its value at $48.83 billion. Mercado Libre continues to be the Argentine company with the highest valuation in the world.
The pan-Latin American e-commerce and fintech firm’s market value has doubled to $50bn during the pandemic as it has provided online sales and payments lifelines to vulnerable companies. Since it was founded in it has become the region’s biggest tech darling, even though in 2020 revenues are projected to be just $3.2bn and it will lose money for a third year running. Profit, though, is for the future. Meanwhile, it is part of a wave of digital disruption that may propel smaller firms—which make up about 80% of those using its platforms—into the modern era. Its e-commerce business earns a fee from transactions between buyers and sellers on its platform.
The conflict between mayors of the ruling party PJ that threatens the company’s concession could ended in another multimillion dollar lawsuit that could cost Argentina $16.5 billion.Reality shows that Argentina always pays. Despite its bad reputation as a payer, it has already paid out billions for expropriations, change of contracts into local currency, and debt in default in international courts, and has at least $8.75 billion in lawsuits pending.
