Goldman Traders Caught in Mexico Stalemate Chasing $400 Million From Texas Freeze

  • A utility owes bank money from a trade roiled by Texas freeze
  • Client is tied to Mexico’s government -- and refuses to pay
A CFE thermal power station in Acolman, Mexico.Photographer: Luis Antonio Rojas/Bloomberg
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It’s a Wall Street nightmare. You score hundreds of millions of dollars on a trade and you just can’t get paid.

That’s what Goldman Sachs Group Inc. faces in a transaction pitting its traders against Mexico’s dominant power company, championed by none other than President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, according to people with knowledge of the matter. At issue: roughly $400 million the Wall Street bank believes it’s owed from a natural-gas trade that went wild when a deep freeze hit Texas in February.