In a press release issued last night, Argentina’s Finance Minister Martín Guzmán announced that he would be presenting to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today the government’s final offer to restructure $66 billion in debt. After almost three months of negotiations, this final proposal, which President Alberto Fernández says “is the maximum effort we can make,” includes some changes to the offer first made on April 21.
These include paying 53.5 cents on the dollar for new bonds, rather than the original 40 cents; reducing the “haircut” on principal from 5.4% to 1.9%, and begin making interest payments in 2021, rather than 2023. As reported by Página 12 July 5, Fernández said that “we hope creditors understand and that Argentine society understands as well that [for creditors] to ask us for more effort means failing to keep the promises we’ve made.”
