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Burned and Trapped, Bondholders Dust Off Guide to Flee Argentina
By
Carolina Millan
,
Sydney Maki
, and
Aline Oyamada
6 settembre 2019, 15:39 CEST
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Pimco, Franklin Templeton among most prominent foreign buyers
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To get ‘trash cash’ out, investors need the blue-chip swap
For the bravest, most risk-tolerant investors out there -- shops like Franklin Templeton and Pimco -- the Argentine trade the past few years was to dive into the local market and scoop up peso-denominated bonds. Paying out interest rates of up to 75%, it was a cash-generating
machine.
But now, amid a collapse that has put the country on the verge of default once again, it is these bonds that have taken the worst of it. Not only have they plunged in value just like the country’s dollar notes, but they have also been hammered by a 25% drop in the peso and gotten ensnared by capital controls the government imposed this week. That move, which came in a desperate bid to
stabilize the peso, effectively blocked investors from taking money out of the country through traditional foreign-exchange markets.
