Very early this morning, Argentina’s Finance Minister Martín Guzmán released a statement announcing that the government had reached an agreement with the three largest group of private bondholders, with which it has been negotiating for the past six months, to restructure $66 billion in defaulted debt. Negotiations had been extremely tense during the several-month process, with predator in chief BlackRock taking a hardline position, trying to disqualify Guzmán as an interlocutor, and demanding changes to the government’s final offer.
Both Guzmán and President Alberto Fernández insisted that their final restructuring offer was the “maximum effort” the government could make and stated there would be no changes. However, according to Bloomberg, the breakthrough in talks came following an Aug. 2 phone call between Guzmán and BlackRock’s managing director Jennifer O’Neill, in which they agreed on the figure of 54.7 cents— a mid-point between Argentina’s offer to pay 53 cents on the dollar for defaulted bonds and BlackRock’s demand it pay 56 cents. The dates for interest and capital payments were moved forward by a few months, and a final date of Aug. 24 has been set for other bondholders to accept participating in the restructuring.
