After years of fits and starts, Venezuela is setting the stage for one of the largest and most complex debt restructurings in decades — unwinding a $154 billion web of defaulted bonds, loans and legal judgments owed to creditors from Wall Street to Russia.
President Nicolas Maduro’s government’s recent hiring of Rothschild & Co. as a financial adviser marks a first step in a massive undertaking that’s likely to drag on for years. But it’s a clear sign that Maduro is intent on re-inserting Venezuela — long an international pariah — back into global financial markets, building on the nascent economic rebound that’s taken hold after an unprecedented decade-long collapse.