NEW YORK, April 23, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Members of the Steering Committee of the Ad Hoc Group of Buenos Aires Bondholders (the "Group"), who filed claims on March 22, 2021 in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York seeking judgment against the Province in respect of the Province's continuing default on scheduled payments of interest and/or principal under eleven series of Notes issued by the Province (the "Notes"), take note of the forthcoming expiration of the Province's exchange offer relating to the Notes on April 23, 2021.
For more than twelve months the Province has been promoting-without amendment-an exchange offer based on restructuring terms that have been decisively rejected by bondholders thirteen times and are poised to be rejected tomorrow for the fourteenth time. The terms of the failed exchange offer were plainly disconnected from the reality of the Province's current economic and financial position when initially launched and have become substantially more so as the Province's revenues and capacity to pay have continued to recover.
While Governor Kiciloff has characterized the Province's bondholders as intransigent and unreasonable, the facts suggest otherwise. International bondholders have reached debt restructuring agreements with nine other Argentine provinces in recent months. These successful deals were based on good faith negotiations following the common-sense Basic Principles framework articulated by the Coalition of Argentine Provincial Bondholders. In all cases, bondholders made significant compromises while the respective provincial issuers simultaneously agreed to debt service obligations commensurate with their resources.
To date, the Provincial leadership has chosen to follow a course of confrontation and default with its international bondholders rather than a course of negotiation and compromise. Before extending once again the acceptance deadline on its failed exchange offer, the Group encourages the Provincial leadership to consider carefully the example of the nine other Argentine provinces which have in recent months resolved their own debt challenges through good faith negotiation with their creditors. The terms of the debt restructurings agreed in those cases provide a clear illustration of the path the Province will need to take in order to avoid a prolongation of its dispute with international bondholders. A resolution can be found, but only if and when Governor Kiciloff and his team stop playing politics with the finances of the Province, to the lasting disadvantage of the Province's businesses and citizens.
The members of the Group remain open to considering proposals from the Province that fairly reflect the reality of the Province's debt service capacity and respect the investments that bondholders have made to support the economic and social development of the Province in the same manner that other Argentine provinces have done. In the meantime they intend to vigorously pursue the legal proceedings that were initiated last month, and reserve in full their right to exercise additional available remedies at any time.
The members of the Steering Committee are represented by White & Case LLP.
White & Case LLP
Erin Hershkowitz in New York
T +1 646 885 2200
E erin.hershkowitz@whitecase.com
