ATHENS • Greece secured an overwhelming acceptance of a bond swap offer to private creditors and beat its own most optimistic forecasts, a senior official said late Thursday after the deadline expired on a deal needed to avoid a chaotic debt default.
A government official said take-up on the offer was around 95% an hour before the offer closed at 8 p.m. GMT with responses still coming in.
The biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history will see bondholders accept losses of 74% on the value of their investments in a deal that will cut more than ¤100-billion ($131.5-billion) from Greece’s crippling public debt.
Preliminary results from the offer are expected to be announced officially at 6 a.m. GMT Friday and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos will hold a news conference before a call with eurozone finance ministers in the afternoon.
After initial fears that the deal could fail, pitching Greece and the eurozone into fresh crisis, the unexpectedly strong result may mean Athens can avoid enforcing the exchange on recalcitrant holdouts.
The government had been expected to activate so-called collective-action clauses (CACs) on all ¤177-billion worth of bonds regulated under Greek law.
That would potentially trigger payouts on the credit default swaps (CDS) that some investors held on the bonds, an event which would have unknown consequences for the market.
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