A Little Less Than Half of Greek Bondholders Still Have Not Agreed Upon Restructuring

“Investors in Greek bonds issued under foreign law rejected the nation’s attempts to restructure the debt at talks last week.

In 20 out of 36 meetings, bondholders either turned down the government’s proposal, adjourned the talks or failed to achieve a quorum, according to a press release today from the Greek Public Debt Management Office.

The meetings involved holders of about $26.8 billion of foreign-law notes denominated in dollars, euros, Swiss francs and yen. Investors owning $15.3 billion of securities agreed to a restructuring, leaving $11.5 billion still to be dealt with.

“The key thing with the international bonds is that holders have to vote bond-by-bond rather than in aggregate,” said Thomas Costerg, European economist at Standard Chartered Bank. “That makes it easier for investors to block the restructuring and raises the question of what Greece can do now.”

Greece is trying to re-organize the rest of its debt after carrying out the biggest sovereign restructuring in history last month. The government is insisting there’s no money to fully pay holders of bonds issued under international law, after it forced investors in 197 billion euros ($263 billion) of domestic-law securities to accept losses of about 70 percent….”

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