Earlier this morning, to much fanfare, the various member of the IIF steering committee announced that they would all gladly be part of the voluntary haircut that would chop off over 70% of their hair. The FT described [8]this development as follows: "A large grouping of private creditors agreed on Monday to take part in the multibillion-euro Greek debt swap in a significant step forward for Athens as the country struggles to avert a sovereign default. Twelve banks, insurers, asset managers and hedge funds in the steering committee of bank lobby group the Institute of International Finance said in a statement that they would take part in the bond exchange. Members of the IIF steering committee include BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, National Bank of Greece, Allianz and Greylock Capital Management. A spokesman for the IIF said this represented a “substantial” amount of the €206bn in Greek bonds held by the private sector that banks managing the swap are trying to involve. Analysts estimate that institutions represented by the IIF make up about 50 per cent of the private sector bonds." Bzzz. Analysts, as so often happens, may have been wrong to quite wrong. According to just released data from Bloomberg analysts analysts may have overestimated the substantial amount... by about 150%. From Bloomberg: "Private Investors Holding About 20% of Greek Debt to Join Swap...The 12 members of the creditors’ steering committee that said today they would join in the exchange have debt with a face value of about 40b euros ($53b), compared with the 206b euros of Greek bonds in private hands, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from company reports." If so, this means that a whopping 80% of the bonds subject to exchange are unaccounted for, and more importantly, it means that the likelihood of a major blocking stake having organized is far greater than even we expected.
As we said earlier today, everyone is now scrambling to get some color on how many funds are currently part of the Bingham group of ad hoc hold out creditors and how many bonds they represent. If the above is even remotely indicative of holding patterns 3 days ahead of the deadline, the PSI ain't gonna happen.