Company wants to exchange bonds due in 2016, 2017 for new debt PDVSA needs half of private bondholders to swap, Nomura says Venezuela’s state-owned oil company has been on default watch for two years. Now it hopes it can buy itself, and the country, more time with a $7 billion debt swap. Petroleos de Venezuela SA wants investors holding unsecured bonds due this year and next to exchange them for notes with payments staggered over the next four years that are backed by shares of the company’s U.S. unit. The government already owns a portion of the notes, but how much is not public. For the deal to have a meaningful impact, PDVSA would need at least half the remaining bondholders to agree to the swap, according to Nomura Holdings Inc. Specific terms of the offer haven’t been announced, so it’s difficult to gauge what the reception will be. […]