Archive - Jul 4, 2011 - Story

Last Wednesday we cited from a Reuters report, according to which the last ditch Greek MLEC/CDO rescue operation, would be welcome to S&P and Moody's as "The whole charm of the French model is that it was worked out in a such way that it will be fine with the rating agencies." Because absent a decree of no EOD, the whole thing is pointless. Well, as often turns out, this was yet more wishful thinking on behalf of some bureaucrat, masked as fact. S&P has just come out with the following: "In recent weeks, a number of proposals relating to this  topic have surfaced, and the particulars in some cases are evidently still  in flux. This credit comment looks at the most prominent of the recent proposals, put forward by the Fédération Bancaire Française (FBF) on June 24, 2011, in the context of our criteria for evaluating distressed debt exchanges and similar debt restructurings (see Related Research below). In brief, it is our view that each of the two financing options described in the FBF proposal would likely amount to a default under our criteria" and specifically: "we believe that both options represent (i) a "similar restructuring"
(ii) are "distressed" and (iii) offer "less value than the promise of
the original securities" under our criteria. Consequently, if either
option were implemented in its current form, absent other mitigating
information, we would likely view it as constituting a default under our
criteria." Goodbye MLEC 2 - as expected you were just as useless as your first iteration back in 2007.

A snapshot of the European Morning Briefing covering Stocks, Bonds, FX, etc.
Market Recaps to help improve your Trading and Global knowledge