Privatization Blues.(Eletropaulo-Metropolitana Electricidade de Sao Paulo, Brazil)

Newsweek International, March, 2003 by Contreras, Joseph; Hudson, Peter; Langman, Jimmy; Margolis, Mac; Moreau, Dan

When Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva was sworn in as Brazil's president in January, he vowed to uphold all existing contractual agreements that he inherited from his predecessor. That was a big promise: Fernando Henrique Cardoso had sold off scores of state companies to the global private sector, raising $103 billion from the auctions.

But some of those firms are now putting Lula's pledge to the test. The U.S. conglomerate AES, for example, missed a deadline last month for paying $329 million on the billion-dollar debt it acquired with the purchase of the state-owned utility Eletropaulo. ...