Here’s a thread for people to discuss the latest stories (here and here) on Greece’s private sector creditors being asked to roll over their funds or else. A quick summary:
The governments will give Greece new lending, to be provided by the European Financial Stability Facility, the euro zone’s sovereign rescue fund, officials said. But that financing will likely come with the condition that the banks, pensions funds and other investors holding Greek bonds agree to exchange them for new bonds with a longer maturity to help fill Greece’s financing gap over the next three years, they said.
“Private investors would have a strong incentive to participate, because if they don’t, there will be a default,” said one official.
It’s the Don Corleone approach to default negotiation, involving making people offers they can’t resist.
Still, providers of CDS insurance will be thrilled to hear that
the debt-exchange process envisioned by the governments won’t rewrite existing bond contracts or trigger a credit event, the officials said, partly easing the ECB’s concerns that private creditors are being forced to contribute financing.
Can someone explain to me why it’s so important to the ECB or any government whether a restructuring scheme constitutes a credit event for CDS purposes? Are the firms that offer this insurance somehow more important sources of systemic risk than those who own Greek sovereign bonds? Or is it more for the appearance of purity — “it was not a default, now way, sure the CDS guys say it wasn’t a credit event”, that kind of thing?
Anyway, what odds are there now that holders of Irish sovereign bonds will walk away unscathed?