7 News Belize

Superbond 2.0: Creditors’ Committee Makes Slight Saber Rattle
posted (August 13, 2012)
The Government of Belize's proposals for Superbond 2.0 continue to get hammered by analysts, and now bondholders - in the form a Creditors Committee - are voicing their dissatisfaction.

A press release from Broadspan Capital - which has been organizing a Creditors' Committee quotes Committee Co-Chair AJ Mediratta as saying that quote "Bondholders have more questions than answers at this point."

If Mediratta's name has a faraway but familiar ring - it should, he's been in our news before. In the good old days of capitalism run amok, he was a Senior Managing Director at Bear Stearns who helped Belize float two of the bonds and secure two insured loans - all amounting to about 340 million dollars of the 547 million in burdensome debt that had to be wrapped into the Superbond.

Well, now, he's back, and working the other end of the table where Mediratta's committee says government has not released material information necessary to evaluate the country's debt sustainability.

Mediratta also adds, quote, "we do not consider the indicative scenarios released last week as the start of negotiations…. we will respond to proposals that are clearly based on ability to pay using reasonable, mutually agreed assumptions." The Creditors Committee does not say is what percentage of bondholders it represents but it is recruiting those bondholders - so that it can achieve critical mass and better leverage Government in negotiations.

The next Superbond payment for 46 million dollars is due a week from today - which makes the air around these exchanges all the more tense.

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