Lebanon will begin the process of restructuring its roughly $30 billion of Eurobonds with an investor presentation on March 27, despite the coronavirus outbreak roiling global markets and paralyzing travel, Bloomberg News reported. The government, which defaulted this month, asked its financial adviser, Lazard Ltd., to initiate talks with investors, the Finance Ministry said in a statement Monday. The government “is developing a sustainable macroeconomic plan to redress the Lebanese economy,” the ministry said.

Sovereign bond restructurings are rarely smooth. Lebanon’s looks like it will be particularly rocky. The rules underpinning the nation’s looming debt overhaul may complicate efforts to gather enough support to change the terms of its bonds, Bloomberg News reported. At the same time, they could protect the country from some of the issues that left Argentina with lengthy court battles.

With distressed debt investors and emerging markets funds suddenly faced with one of the sharpest asset price falls in a generation, Lebanon picked the wrong time to go bankrupt, Reuters reported. Funds are still circling as the clock ticks down on Lebanon’s first sovereign default, but some may not buy until after the government unveils plans to revamp the debt and reform its economy, and the dust settles on a global asset plunge.

With Lebanon in default for the first time in its history, banks are in crisis and the economy is in freefall. But one sector is booming: property. Desperate for a safe haven for their cash, citizens and professional investors have been buying up real estate at levels not seen for years in Lebanon’s previously stagnant property market, the Financial Times reported. At one central Beirut real estate agent, where the five-member team has toiled for months to the sound of the protests that have engulfed the Lebanese capital since October, the clients just keep calling.

Investors in Lebanon’s dollar debt are nursing big losses after the government failed to repay a $1.2bn bond due on Monday, triggering the country’s first ever sovereign default, the Financial Times reported. Lebanese dollar bonds have since lost half of their value, with the March bond trading at roughly 28 cents on the dollar on Tuesday, down from 57 cents on Friday. London-based asset manager Ashmore owned more than 25 per cent of the bond at the end of last year, according to fund filings compiled by Bloomberg.

Lebanon is set to default on its debts for the first time on Monday as its foreign currency reserves plummet to critically low levels, the Financial Times reported. Prime minister Hassan Diab has said that Lebanon will not be able to pay a $1.2bn Eurobond that matures on Monday as the country’s economic crisis deepens. The government is now preparing for negotiations with its creditors as it grapples with debts of more than $90bn, equivalent to about 170 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product.

Lebanon’s financial prosecutor has frozen the assets of almost half the crisis-hit country’s banks and their executives, piling further pressure on an already stressed financial sector, the Financial Times reported. The move against the banking sector, once seen as the pillar of Lebanon’s economy, comes as Beirut’s worst financial crisis for decades pushes the heavily indebted government towards its first default, and as popular fury towards the country’s ruling classes has focused on financial elites.

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.

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.

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.