Rothschild helped Ukraine clinch debt restructuring – Reuters
Kiev’s financial adviser arranged face-to-face meetings with bondholders in July 2022 after initial talks failed, according to a report | Ukraine reached its recent agreement with bondholders on a debt restructuring as a result of efforts by Rothschild & Co, Reuters reported on Tuesday, citing sources involved in the talks. Kiev appointed Rothschild as an advisor to its Finance Ministry in 2017. ■ Kiev announced last week that it had reached an agreement with a group of foreign investors to restructure its $20 billion debt. Bondholders – including US financial giants BlackRock and Pimco, as well as French asset manager Amundi – granted Ukraine a two-year debt freeze in February 2022 when the conflict with Russia broke out. ■ The bondholders’ committee, which represents the holders of 25% of the bonds, has agreed to accept losses of 37%, or $8.7 billion, on the nominal value of their debt. [...] The restructuring of the massive debt will help Kiev save $11.4 billion over the next three years. This is crucial for both its war effort and its IMF program, Reuters wrote, describing the debt restructuring as one of the fastest and largest in history, eclipsed in scale only by those undertaken by Argentina and Greece.