Greek Funds Head Warns Debt Restructuring to Devastate Economy
By Paul Tugwell - May 10, 2011 1:01 AM GMT+0200 Mon May 09 23:01:00 GMT 2011
Greece’s money managers are warning of damage to an already crippled economy should European leaders move to restructure the country’s debt.
Greek bond yields and the cost of insuring the country’s debt against default rose to all-time highs amid speculation about a debt write-off or an extension of repayment timelines. Standard & Poor’s cut Greece’s long-term sovereign credit rating by two levels yesterday to B, five notches below investment grade. The rating may be lowered further, S&P said.
“Right now a restructuring shouldn’t and can’t happen,” Aris Xenofos, president of the
Hellenic Fund & Asset Management Association representing 36 firms, said in an interview before the downgrade. “It would be devastating for the
Greek economy, and detrimental for the rest of the European Union and the euro.”
Greece is relying on its 110 billion-euro ($157 billion) bailout last year from the European Union and the
International Monetary Fund, as well as Treasury bill sales, to meet its funding needs through 2011. As part of the package, Greece is supposed to regain access to markets next year and refinance at least 75 percent of its maturing medium- and long-term debt.
The government is eliminating state jobs and reducing debt at nationally owned enterprises as well as overhauling the country’s tax and pension system to boost revenue.
“The key issue is not a restructuring, but the extent to which the economy and Greek society will manage to produce and deliver results following the structural reforms,” said Xenofos, who also is managing director of EFG Eurobank Mutual Fund Management Co., part of Greece’s second-largest bank.
Euro Partners
Euro-region officials said that Greece needs “a further adjustment program” after an unscheduled May 6 meeting with Luxembourg Prime Minister
Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the group of finance ministers. A restructuring would hurt more than providing the country with additional help, the senior finance spokesman for German Chancellor
Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party said yesterday in Berlin.
Yields on two-year Greek notes increased 25 basis points to 25.58 percent yesterday after hitting a record last month. The 10-year yield rose 22 basis points to 15.73 percent, up from 12.4 percent at the start of the year.
Credit-default swaps on Greek debt jumped 19 basis points to a record 1,360, according to CMA, signaling a 68 percent probability of default within five years.
The markets should wait until next year to see if there are signs Greece’s economy is returning to growth, Xenofos said at his Athens office on April 29.
Economic Plight
“We need to wait until at least the earlier part of 2012 to see where we are and whether we need to start discussing more serious scenarios for a restructuring and the conditions and nature such a restructuring would take,” Xenofos said.
Greece’s economy, in its third year of a recession, is forecast by the government to shrink 3 percent this year before returning to growth in 2012. The country’s debt is projected to peak at 59 percent more than economic output in 2012.
The country plans 76 billion euros of austerity measures and state-asset sales through 2015 that aim to reduce the
budget deficit to close to 1 percent of gross domestic product from a targeted 7.4 percent this year.
“Greece’s problems won’t be solved by restructuring its debt but by restructuring the country,” Prime Minister
George Papandreou said April 15.
Greek Funds
The Hellenic Fund & Asset Management Association’s members had combined assets of 10 billion euros at the end of 2010, according to the
group’s website.
Any possible restructuring of Greek debt would have a “limited” effect on Greece’s fund management industry as “a very rigid” legal framework requires managers to value all securities based on the current market price, Xenofos said.
Domestic bond funds have exposure of about 700 million euros, he said. The figure rises to 1.5 billion euros when money-market funds and those investing in a range of assets are included, Xenofos said.
Key to the growth of Greece’s fund management industry are the state pension funds, which have so far only allocated as much as 1.8 billion euros to mutual funds out of a total of about 25 billion euros of assets, according to Xenofos.
“If you have state pension funds that don’t support the fund management industry in Greece, then you don’t have a safety net for situations such as the one we are experiencing,” he said.
(Bloomberg)