With an enormous €14.5 billion bond maturing on March 20th, Greece continues to negotiate with its private sector investors on the reduction of approximately €100 billion of its total €350 billion of debt. Agreement with these investors is intended to reduce the country’s debt from 160% of GDP to 120% of GDP by 2020 and is required in order for Greece to secure from the European Union and International Monetary Fund the second installment of bailout funds, approximately €130 billion, necessary for the country to avoid default. However, the negotiations have been complicated and, perhaps, compromised, not only by Greece’s economic deterioration, but also, at least to some extent, by the involvement of smaller private investors who have purchased Greek debt—and, in some cases, credit default swap (“CDS”) protection on Greece—since the deal was announced in October 2011. At that time, the expectation was that approximately 90% of debt holders would voluntarily agree to the terms of the restructuring, which generally entailed an exchange of existing debt for new, longer-dated bonds. There is now concern that, as currently contemplated, significantly fewer debt holders will voluntarily agree to the proposed terms of the restructuring. One reason for this appears to be the purchase (at a deep discount) of large amounts of Greek debt from banks by funds and others more insulated from political and other pressures to accept a restructuring. This has resulted not only in a decline in debt holders willing to participate in an exchange of debt, but also in the tougher negotiation of terms for the new debt. READ MORE →