Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro announced yesterday the formation of a national commission to pursue a restructuring of the country's external debt including that of the national oil company, PDVSA, after making the last coupon payment of $1.1 billion for the latter that was due on Nov. 2, 2017. Concrete plans to restructure sovereign debt would likely constitute a distressed debt exchange and a default under our criteria. As a result, we are lowering our corporate and issue-level ratings on PDVSA to 'CC' from 'CCC-'. The CreditWatch negative remains unchanged. The CreditWatch negative listing reflects our view that PDVSA could miss a payment on its outstanding debt obligations or start a distressed debt exchange operation, equivalent to default, within the next
