FirstBank Puerto Rico asked a court to dismiss a bankruptcy case filed by the owner of a luxury Caribbean island resort, saying that it is interfering with an ongoing effort to collect the more than $120 million it is owed, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today.
Puerto Rico in Distress
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Scrub Island Development Group Ltd., the owner of a British Virgin Islands luxury resort, sought bankruptcy protection to end a receivership it claims was secretly put in place by its lender, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The company listed debt and assets of more than $100 million each in chapter 11 documents filed on Tuesday.
Puerto Rico’s El Vocero newspaper could soon get a new owner that would preserve its voice on the 3.6 million-resident island, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. A trustee in charge of the newspaper’s bankruptcy case has proposed to hold a public auction on Nov. 22.
Puerto Rico’s current debt, between $52 billion and $70 billion, is the third-largest behind California’s and New York’s, despite a far smaller and poorer population, according to an analysis in the recent edition of The Economist. In America’s 50 states the average ratio of state debt to personal income is 3.4 percent.