Wednesday, March 2, 2016

The Austrian authorities have taken yet another step on the mined field of financial "stability" of the so-called hard core of the Eurozone. Amid the nearing of the deadline for the moratorium set on the payment of the debts of Heta Asset Resolution, the bad bank set up for the takeover of the non-performing land of Hypo Alpe-Adria, the creditors have been presented with the buyback terms for the bonds guaranteed by the land of Carinthia. Their total par value is 11 billion Euros, and the "offer" includes the payment of 75% of the par value for senior bonds and 30% of the value of subordinated bonds, which means a total loss of approximately 3.2 billion Euros for lenders. "Creditors that refuse the offer could wait for as long as ten years for a ruling of the judicial system in their favor", said Hans-Joerg Schelling, the Austrian finance minister, according to Bloomberg. Schelling further said that "the offer is excellent", according to Bloomberg, and creditors "should be rational and accept it". For the buyback of the Heta bonds, Austria has set up a special investment vehicle, Kaerntner Ausgleichszahlungs-Fonds (The Fund for the Payment of Compensations of Carinthia). Unfortunately for the authorities in Vienna, the notion of "rational" is understood differently by creditors. "What the Austrian authorities have done is unprecedented in the developed world: they have announced a figure that they consider acceptable and they have asked the creditors to accept the offer", the partner of Swiss company Gold Partners AG who owns 200 million Euros worth of Heta bonds, told Bloomberg. The list of creditors that oppose the offer includes far bigger names however, such as German banks Commerzbank AG and NordLB, as well as PIMCO, the American investment fund manager owned by Allianz AG.  Bloomberg estimates show that the exposure of those who have rejected the proposal of the Austrian authorities is about 5 billion Euros and represents approximately 45% of the total debt, as the terms of the offer are non-negotiable, and its acceptance by two thirds of the creditors involves its unconditional application and for the other creditors as well.

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