Greece must seal debt swap by around March 10: PM

Reuters
February 22, 2012

Greece must complete a swap of private holdings of its debt as part of a 130-billion-euro EU/IMF bailout package by around March 10 at the latest, caretaker Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said Tuesday.

Papademos made the statement as his government introduced into parliament a draft law that could if needed force private investors to swap their bonds for lower-value debt as part of the rescue package agreed earlier with eurozone states.

"We believe the decisions that were taken and the deal that was clinched significantly reduce the uncertainty over our country's financial support for the next three years," he said.

"We have a lot of work to do from now until the end of March," he added.

Completion of the transaction by the deadline specified by Papademos would provide Greece with much needed new funds. On March 20 it must make a 14.5-billion-euro debt repayment.

The swap will entail investors losing 53.5 percent of the face value of their bonds. If parliament passes the law, so-called Collective Action Clauses (CACs) will force all investors to accept the swap once a threshold of two-thirds participation in the transaction is attained, a government minister said.

"It's 66 percent," the minister told Reuters of the threshold on condition of anonymity.

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