Lebanon

A majority of Lebanese MPs oppose paying looming Eurobond maturities, even if that leads to default, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said on Wednesday, compounding doubts over whether the heavily indebted state will meet a March 9 repayment, Reuters reported. Lebanon is facing an unprecedented economic and financial crisis, which came to a head last year as capital inflows slowed and protests erupted against the ruling elite. Its next maturity is a $1.2 billion Eurobond due on March 9.

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Lebanese officials are considering asking local banks to buy back Eurobonds they sold to foreign funds, after the transactions gave outside creditors more leverage in a potential restructuring discussion if the government decides to default, former Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil said, Bloomberg News reported.

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Lebanon’s financial and legal advisers are in talks with holders of its dollar-denominated debt about restructuring but have not reached a deal, a source close to the government said on Monday, Reuters reported. The country is widely expected to restructure the sovereign bonds after a long-brewing economic crisis, which came to a head last year as capital inflows slowed and protests erupted against Lebanon’s ruling elite over corruption and bad governance.

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Lebanon’s banking lobby made a last-ditch appeal to the government to avoid a debt default and instead offer a swap into new notes for all bondholders, Bloomberg News reported. In the clutches of its worst financial crisis in decades, Lebanon is running out of time to decide how to handle a debt burden that economists say is no longer sustainable. It faces a choice of repaying more than $1.2 billion of Eurobonds due March 9 or restructuring liabilities to preserve dwindling foreign-exchange reserves.

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Lebanon intends to ask for a seven-day grace period for a $1.2 billion Eurobond that matures on March 9, as it is entitled to, in order to give financial advisers more time to draft a restructuring plan, a government source said on Thursday, Reuters reported. Lebanon would seek the seven-day grace period ahead of the March 9 date, the source said. Financial sources said the exercising of the seven-day grace period would make it more likely the government would seek to restructure the March 2020 Eurobond. Lebanon faces two further Eurobond maturities this year, one in April and one in June.

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Lebanon has a lot more than just maturing Eurobonds to worry about. In addition to $31bn of those, the Middle Eastern nation’s central bank has $52.5bn of obligations in the form of foreign-currency deposits and certificates of deposit, according to calculations by Toby Iles and Jan Friederich, Hong Kong-based analysts at Fitch Ratings Ltd, Gulf Business reported. Mostly owed to Lebanese banks, these additional debts compound the country’s woes as it grapples with its deepest economic crisis in decades.

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Lebanon is trapped in a full-scale emergency. It confronts a debt crisis, with sovereign borrowings amounting to 160 per cent of gross domestic product. It faces a fiscal crisis, with the budget deficit likely to reach 15 per cent of GDP last year, officials acknowledge, the Financial Times reported in a commentary. Then there is the currency crisis. Lebanon is almost out of dollars, in an economy that is 70 per cent dollarised. The Lebanese pound is still pegged to the dollar, but has lost more than 60 per cent of its value in the parallel exchange market.

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For the third time in six months, British billionaire Mark Coombs is betting on bonds that many on Wall Street deem destined for default, Bloomberg News reported. Ashmore Group Plc, the $98 billion money manager led by Coombs, has been piling into Lebanon notes due March 9 just as many of its rivals warn a missed payment is all but certain. The firm boosted its holdings to more than 25% of the $1.2 billion of bonds, enough for a blocking stake if there’s a restructuring.

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France is looking at options to help Lebanon recover from its financial crisis, including an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme if Beirut seeks one, a minister said on Monday, Reuters reported. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire also told reporters in Abu Dhabi that he had discussed the situation in Lebanon with the United Arab Emirates leadership. “We are very concerned,” Le Maire said, adding that the United Arab Emirates and France will decide separately if and how to support the government in Beirut.

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Lebanon was downgraded deeper into junk by two of the three biggest credit rating companies Friday as the nation’s bondholders braced for a potential default next month, Bloomberg News reported. S&P Global Ratings cut the country’s long-term foreign currency rating to CC, following a similar reduction by Moody’s Investors Service to Ca earlier in the day. That puts Lebanon’s rating below the likes of Argentina, Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

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