Bloomberg
May 12, 2011
Greece had 13 off-market derivative contracts with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), most of which swapped Japanese yen into euros in a 2001 transaction aimed at concealing the true size of the nation’s debt, according to the European Union’s statistics office.
The amount borrowed through the swaps was due to be repaid with an interest-rate swap that would have spread payments through 2019, Eurostat said in a report on its website today. In 2005, the maturity was extended to 2037, the report said. Restructuring the swaps spread the cost over a longer period, leading to an increase in liabilities and debt, Eurostat said.
Repeated revisions of Greece’s figures, beginning in 2009, spurred a surge in borrowing costs that pushed the country to the brink of default and triggered a region-wide debt crisis. The use of off-market swaps, which Greece hadn’t previously disclosed as debt, let the country increase borrowings by 5.3 billion euros ($7.5 billion), Eurostat said in November.
Today’s report provides details of Eurostat’s analysis of data obtained by its inspectors in Greece last year. Eurostat said most issues surrounding the swaps were resolved in September, when Greece agreed to correct its debt figures.
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Read the Eurostat Report
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