Puerto Rico's Government Development Bank (GDB) on Friday presented some of the island's creditors with more details on a forthcoming plan to consolidate their bonds into a single bond exchange, in a meeting the GDB's president called "very positive and productive,” Reuters reported on Friday. GDB has said it plans to offer creditors a universal debt exchange, or "superbond," which in essence would allow bondholders across several Puerto Rican credits to exchange their debt for a single new bond. But with existing bonds backed by different revenue streams from the various issuing authorities, such as the GDB itself and Puerto Rican sales tax authority COFINA, GDB president Melba Acosta said revenue streams might be consolidated to support the new bond. "If we have different credits that have different repayment sources...there will most probably be a consolidation of repayment sources," Acosta said. The meeting comes ahead of a Dec. 1 hearing about Puerto Rico before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, as Congressional Republicans mull whether to support legislation that could help Puerto Rico restructure its debt. Read more.
For more news and analysis on Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, be sure to check ABI’s “Puerto Rico in Distress” webpage.
