Ukraine to propose $20 billion debt restructuring - Reuters
Kyiv • UNN
Ukraine will propose a $20 billion debt restructuring plan to international bondholders.
Ukraine is going to send a $20 billion debt restructuring plan to international bondholders by early May, two sources familiar with the situation told Reuters, UNN reports.
Details
As Reuters notes, it is crucial for Ukraine to reach a debt restructuring agreement before the two-year payment freeze agreed with its international bondholders expires in August.
According to the newspaper's sources, the proposals for bondholders should be the starting point for formal negotiations, including detailed discussions and the exchange of confidential information.
One source said that the Ukrainian government hopes to reach preliminary agreements no later than June.
According to the sources, the bondholders hope to come out of the restructuring with new bonds that will pay interest from the start. However, paying foreign bondholders may prove unacceptable to Kyiv, Reuters writes.
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Ukraine is seeking access to capital markets and will have to issue bonds as part of its debt restructuring, but it can also raise new financing by selling secured and guaranteed bonds.
In this case, Ukraine's international partners - multilateral creditors or individual countries - will provide collateral for the new bonds, similar to the so-called Brady bonds issued by Latin American countries in the late 1980s, which were backed by U.S. Treasury bonds.
Last week, the bondholders reportedly announced the formation of an ad hoc committee in anticipation of formal negotiations starting in the near future. They appointed Weil, Gotshal & Manges as legal advisors and PJT Partners as financial advisors.
Ukraine also needs to decide how to process the outstanding bonds of a number of state-owned enterprises. State gas company Naftogaz restructured its international bonds separately last year. The Financial Times reported that a group of bondholders does not want the international bonds of the grid operator Ukrenergo to be included in the sovereign debt restructuring.
Most of Ukraine's bilateral creditors have suspended repayment obligations until 2027. Analysts expect that Ukraine may ask its bondholders to extend the maturity date if it fails to reach a deal with bondholders before the summer deadline.
Addendum
In early April, Julie Kozak, a representative of the International Monetary Fund, commented on experts' assumptions about the likelihood of Ukraine's debt of $15 billion being written off. According to her, Ukraine's debt has been recognized as sustainable, and the restructuring perimeter does not include debts to the IMF.
