Buenos Aires Province gets 98% backing to restructure debt
Buenos Aires Province won enough creditor support to restructure 98% of its $7.1 billion in overseas debt - putting Argentina’s largest and most populous province a step closer to ending a 16-month default.
The province, home to 3 out of 8 Argentines, will swap all of the bonds it had offered to exchange except for portions of dollar-denominated notes due 2021 and euro-denominated bonds due 2020 - which had been issued under rules that required a higher amount of creditor participation to pull all holders along.
The deal will allow the province to save $4.6 billion over the next six years.
The exchange marks a success for Buenos Aires Governor Axel Kicillof, 49 - known for butting heads with vulture funds as Argentina’s economy minister in 2013-15 - and his strategy of structuring the deal in a way designed to dissuade creditors from holding out.
It also brings Argentina’s most recent round of debt restructurings nearer a close, after a sharp economic contraction exacerbated by the pandemic prompted nearly every province to restructure obligations over the past 12 months.
President Alberto Fernandez's administration likewise swapped $65 billion in securities a year ago - part of some $100 billion in added foreign debt inherited from right-wing predecessor Mauricio Macri.
At: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-30/buenos-aires-province-to-restructure-98-of-bonds-in-debt-deal
Buenos Aires Province Governor Axel Kicillof announces today's agreement with bondholders, with Provincial Economy Minister Pablo López.
The swap allows the province to emerge from a 16-month default, and to save $4.6 billion in scarce foreign currency over the next six years.
The province's foreign currency-denominated debt had ballooned by 68%, to $9.1 billion, under his predecessor María Vidal - part of a nationwide policy under Vidal's political boss, former President Mauricio Macri.
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before seeing this article, and couldn't quite grasp the situation. It finally is getting clearer!
Macri communicated a LOT with Maria Vidal during his ONE term. I am familiar with going to find photos to go with articles posted in this forum and her name came up fairly often.
I found this delightful photo of Vidal with Macri and the always creepy Lareta. It looks as if they are all having a horrible day together!
They did so much damage, it's a blessing they are gone, knock on wood!
Thank you for this much better information, showing some great work by a skilled official working for the country, not for himself, unlike the fiends who were voted out!
You'll recall that, in 2019, he defeated Vidal.
The defeat was so decisive, she moved back to the city of Buenos Aires to run for Congress this year (into a $540,000 apartment, I might add - despite her claims that she "had nothing" ).
It's on Pueyrredón 2423, if you enjoy using Google Earth; the famed Recoleta Cemetery is nearby.
Vidal, it's worth mentioning, is Opus Dei.
So Kicillof's defeating her, quickly prompted a vendetta resembling the one the GOP had for Obama (i.e. an "undesirable" defeating an "ethnically and religiously ideal" candidate).
But through it all, he's getting the job done. And doing so in Argentina's largest and most difficult province.
Made all the more difficult by Vidal's taking on, in just 3 years, $7 billion in dollar-denominated debt - which for a non-hard currency country like Argentina, is the most difficult to service.
That's been Argentina's biggest problem since the dictatorship ran the country into its first debt crisis 40 years ago, with many of the other problems (inflation, poverty, etc.) getting worse as a result.
Thanks as always, Judi. Enjoy your weekend. 
Good grief!
Learning Maria Vidal is also an Opus Dei is so special! (Among the worst monsters, like Justice Anton Scalia!) Driven classist racist radical extremists. Inhumans!
She's no national treasure!
Argentina has a deep bench of these fiends in the ruling class, by all means. The world would be so much healthier without these cultures in power. So hard to lose them.
I don't believe the US has any neighborhoods like some places in Buenos Aires. They are impressive.
Hoping your weekend will be spectacular, peppertree. I'll bet it's beautiful there as fall approaches.
