The Greek Restructuring of 2012 – Filling in the Gaps

Greece’s restructuring of March 2012 was one of the biggest, deepest, and fastest in sovereign debt history. Much has been written about it already, but there are still significant gaps in our understanding of how matters played out on the ground. For example, how and why did the restructurers decide to move from a 75% vote requirement in each bond (the standard at the time) to a class voting mechanism (a bankruptcy model)? Were they not worried about legal risk? And what about the reversal of the threat to not pay a single cent to any holdouts? Sovereign debt guru Andrew Shutter, one of the architects of the 2012 Greek restructuring, joins us to talk about these and other questions.

Producer: Leanna Doty