Argentina seeks $15 billion bond issue to pay holdouts; deal must be approved by Congress.
Argentina is on the verge of issuing the largest sum of debt by any developing nation since 1996 as the country seeks to end a long-running and rancorous debt dispute by paying for it by raising fresh credit on global financial markets, the question is what interest rate Buenos Aires will be forced to pay after a 15-year market hiatus.
On Monday, Argentine President Mauricio Macri agreed to a $4.65 billion cash payment for four “holdout” creditors who refused to restructure debt in 2005 or 2010, paving the way for Argentina to regain access to international debt markets for the first time since its default in 2001. The principal holdout litigant, Paul Singer’s Cayman Islands-based NML, bought $48 million in defaulted 2001 Argentine bonds in 2008 and stands to receive over $3 billion in payouts from the Macri offer.
Once the total cost of the accord has been calculated, Argentine Finance Minister Alfonso Prat-Gay has said it will be funded through $15 billion of new bonds. Further debt issuance to fund government spending and boost reserves is expected later in the year. This would make Argentina the largest issuer of hard currency bonds in emerging markets since Mexico borrowed $16 billion 20 years ago, according to data provider Dealogic.
Before any debt is issued, however, Argentina’s deal with bondholders must gain approval from Congress. Macri must also ask Congress to reopen a bond swap to accommodate holdouts, and to rescind the Sovereign Payment Law. The law allowed many regular bondholders whose payments had been blocked since 2014 by Lower Manhattan Judge Thomas Griesa at the holdouts' behest to start collecting their payments in Buenos Aires or Paris.
Since 2013, however, markets in Buenos Aires have rallied, lifting Argentina’s existing bonds out of crisis territory. Bonar 2024 bonds, a possible point of comparison to new 10 year debt, yield 7.9%. The scale of borrowing required to pay holdouts, however, means any hope the government has of borrowing money at less than 8% a year may be dashed, said Sergio Trigo Paz, head of emerging markets fixed income at BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager. “We’re very happy that Argentina has reached an agreement with bondholders,” he said. “But with such a significant amount of debt to issue it will have to look at a higher clearing price.”
“Argentina has a reformist government and it is staffed by ex-Wall Street people who know what they are doing but it still hasn’t fixed up its economy,” said Greg Saichin, head of emerging markets fixed income at Allianz Global Investors. “They will expose themselves if they bring too much paper to the market in one go. I’d advise them to start with an $8 billion sale.”
By the end of the year, Argentina may have issued as much as $20 billion, according to estimates by Alejo Costa, chief of research at Puente, a Buenos Aires brokerage.
At: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:t_-LORz3egoJ:www.ft.com/cms/s/0/2869acbe-dfbe-11e5-b67f-a61732c1d025.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us#axzz41nPFFaCn
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This $15 billion in new debt - at 8% interest - isn't being taken to finance public works, education, social programs, or even the budget deficit. It's being taken on to give holdout bondholders - mostly, money-laundering vulture funds - payouts that range from 1,000% in most cases, to over 6,000% in the case of Paul Singer's Cayman Islands-based NML.
Singer, btw, was just named National Finance Chairman by the Narco Rubio campaign.
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A panelist on the morning Agenda show said that if Narco's hands were even half as large as his ears, then he'd have a leg to stand on. I didn't get her name, but I really LOVED that quick wit.
(They had been discussing Narco's entry into personal insults regarding Trump.)
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To be completely representative, each head should be wearing a clown hat. [/center]
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This would be a damning picture for a human being: being caught alive with Phyllis Schlafly!
Not once, but twice![/center]
I did see the photo of the foam party. That definitely looks like the Rubio cranium in there, doesn't it?
I think Phyllis looks better as she ages. I would think the 2nd photo is more recent. Seems time has knocked some of the nasty sharp edges off that strange woman.
I remember being "impressed" by her downright deviousness when, in college, I read that she took credit at some point for defeating the ERA by fooling enough women into thinking that, if it passed, they'd never get anything in a divorce.
I hope it taught the progressive community to never underestimate the power of sophistry to turn public opinion. And Phyllis took to it like a pig to the mud.
That might explain her very good complexion for her age (I bet Marco asked her for tips). 
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It was in an article I found looking for info. on Angel Barrios, whose name I saw in the article.
Didn't find his photo, to my knowledge, but found his name in this Washington Post article, which also had this photo. It says Narco's sister graduated from law school in Miami. Just the right wife for a narcotrafficker to marry, right?
Rubio’s summer of ’90: An arrest, then newfound purpose
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The entrance to Alice C. Wainwright Park in Miami, where Marco Rubio was arrested on May 23, 1990 — five days before his 19th birthday. (Scott Higham/The Washington Post)
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By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Scott Higham January 21
MIAMI — Marco Rubio’s first year of college at a small school in Missouri ended badly. His grades were awful. A neck injury dashed any hopes of achieving greatness on the football field. He was hurting for money.
He resolved to go back to Florida and get his life on a path to success. Instead the 18-year-old added to his troubles after returning to Miami for summer break: He was arrested one night in May 1990 for being in a crime-plagued public park after closing time, according to police records and an interview with a friend who was cited with Rubio that night.
The previously unreported misdemeanor, which eventually was dismissed, tugged Rubio into the criminal-justice system just one year after the conviction of his brother-in-law in a major drug-trafficking case had exacted a devastating toll on his family. But that summer also marks a turning point for Rubio, the moment when a somewhat aimless young man found a direction and purpose that shaped the highly focused politician who now sits among the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.
Rubio, who has no history of criminal convictions, has never discussed his arrest publicly, and he did not mention it in his 2012 memoir, “An American Son.”
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rubios-summer-of-90-an-arrest-then-newfound-purpose/2016/01/21/3582a72e-c04d-11e5-bcda-62a36b394160_story.html
Some teenagers get to go to Cancun, etc. Narco went to the Alice C. Wainwright Park. Hey, lucky guy!
