Greek bond buyback met target by deadline, reports say
Greece reached its buyback target, accepting tenders for more than 30 billion euros of its bonds by Tuesday lunchtime, according to reports.
Both Greek state-run TV NET and the Reuters news agency reported that by 2 p.m. (Greek time), when the deadline expired, enough bonds had been gathered for Greece to proceed with the debt reduction program agreed with the eurozone and for its lenders to release more bailout funding.
A senior Greek bank executive told Reuters that local lenders have contributed almost all of the bonds they had had held back from the initial round of offers last week.
It is thought that Greece had received offers totaling almost 31.5 billion euros by Tuesday lunchtime.
Local lenders had only tendered about 10 billion of roughly 17 billion euros in Greek bondholdings by the original deadline on Friday evening, hoping that the rest would be made up by notes submitted by hedge funds.
The Eurogroup was due to hold a teleconference on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the bond buyback program. Eurozone finance ministers are expected to approve on Thursday the release of Greece’s next tranche of loan funding, worth 34.4 billion euros.
The International Monetary Fund had insisted that a successful buyback, allowing Greece to reduce its debt by 20 billion euros, was a prerequisite for it continue co-financing the Greek bailout.
