Puerto Rico’s Government Development Bank, which served as the island’s financial adviser and lender before being placed in a state of emergency, failed to pay investors $9.9 million of interest due Sept. 1., according to a regulatory filing, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The bank, whose regulator says is insolvent and faced a cash shortfall of as much as $1.3 billion in June, has been defaulting on debt payments since May. September’s missed payment was disclosed in a filing yesterday on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s website. President Barack Obama last week selected seven people from lists provided by congressional leaders from both parties to serve on a federal control board that will oversee any restructuring of Puerto Rico’s $70 billion of outstanding debt and monitor the island’s budgets. Puerto Rico defaulted on nearly $1 billion on July 1, including $780 million on general-obligation bonds, the largest such payment failure in the $3.7 trillion municipal-bond market. Read more.
For more news and analysis of Puerto Rico's debt crisis, be sure to visit ABI's "Puerto Rico in Distress" webpage.
