Default Ain't Just a River in Turbio

So this one’s inexplicably flying under the Communicational Hegemon’s radar: Sidetur, the steelmaker and one-time Sivensa subsidiary expropriated back in 2010, missed its coupon payment on $100 million...

Los bonos no están tan cabilla...
La vaina es que los bonos no están tan cabilla…

So this one’s inexplicably flying under the Communicational Hegemon’s radar: Sidetur, the steelmaker and one-time Sivensa subsidiary expropriated back in 2010, missed its coupon payment on $100 million worth of bonds last week, putting at least one shard of the Venezuelan public sector behemoth deeper into outright default.

According to Deutsche Bank, Sidetur first missed a coupon payment back in January, so with this missed payment it’s just heading deeper into default-land.

The markets don’t seem to be entirely freaking out about this yet, even though the government’s line on this – we only seized Sidetur’s assets, it’s up to the folks we expropriated to answer for its liabilities – is just this side of bonkers.

As signals go, it’s just really not good.