Brazil: and where to from here?

The Brazilian loan market had ridden out the worst of the Asian and Russian crises before the government was forced to devalue the real this January. Standard&Poor's responded by downgrading the sovereign and 17 top companies from BB to B+. Last week the Brazilian government held a crisis meeting with Wall Street financiers to reassure foreign investors and to avoid a large scale debt default. Ruth Ramsay looks at the creditworthiness of the country's borrowers.