CARACAS ¨C Japanese investment bank Nomura Securities bought about $100 million worth of Venezuelan government bonds last week as part of the same transaction that has landed Goldman Sachs Group in the middle of a political storm, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Nomura¡¯s trading arm paid about $30 million for the debt, a steep discount to where the troubled country¡¯s bonds trade in the market, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Nomura declined comment.
Goldman has said its asset-management arm acquired $2.8 billion of the October 2022 bonds issued by Venezuela¡¯s oil company, PDVSA, ¡°on the secondary market from a broker and did not interact with the Venezuelan government.¡±
The president of Venezuela¡¯s opposition-run congress, Julio Borges, accused Goldman of ¡°aiding and abetting the country¡¯s dictatorial regime¡± in the deal.
Venezuela¡¯s opposition has campaigned to dissuade Wall Street firms from financing President Nicolas Maduro¡¯s government, which has drawn international condemnation for abuses of power and human rights violations.
The nation¡¯s opposition-led National Assembly on Tuesday voted to ask the U.S. Congress to investigate the Goldman deal, which they called immoral, opaque and hypocritical given the socialist government¡¯s anti-Wall Street rhetoric.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.