Two holdout bond insurers have agreed to a previously announced deal to restructure more than $8 billion of revenue bonds issued by Puerto Rico’s bankrupt electric utility, the U.S. commonwealth’s federally created financial oversight board said yesterday, Reuters reported. The action by National Public Finance Guarantee Corp. and Syncora Guarantee Inc. to join a definitive restructuring support agreement (RSA) reached in May with other creditors moves the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) closer to exiting a form of bankruptcy filed in July 2017. “The addition of Syncora and National to the RSA provides significant certainty to the restructuring not only of PREPA’s bonds, but to the transformation of PREPA to a modern, efficient power utility able to deliver clean, reliable and affordable energy to the people and businesses of Puerto Rico,” a statement from the oversight board said. It added that all of the insurers guaranteeing payments on the utility’s debt and holders of about 90 percent of PREPA’s other, uninsured bonds have now joined the agreement. National Public Finance, a subsidiary of MBIA Inc, is PREPA’s largest single creditor, owning or insuring about $1.4 billion of the utility’s bonds, according to the company, which claimed earlier this year it had been excluded from negotiations as it sought a court-appointed receiver for the utility.
