By Eliana Raszewski and Cassandra Garrison
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Argentina laid out details of its external bond restructuring offer on Friday, which would involve pushing maturities back to 2030 and beyond, part of its drive to revamp an unsustainable debt burden.
The formal restructuring proposal comes after the government laid out the broad sweep of the offer to international creditors holding around $66.2 billion of its foreign-law debt as the South American nation looks to dodge a painful default.
Argentina offered dollar and euro bonds to international creditors, with the first crop not due to expire until November of 2030. The earliest of the bonds included in the restructuring was set to mature this year.
Other maturity dates for the proposed new instruments were in 2036, 2039, 2043 and 2047, the document said.
Investors had been looking for extra details, including about the schedules for coupon payments, which will take the largest hit in the restructuring.
The new dollar-denominated bonds expiring in 2030 will have a 0.5% interest rate from 2022 to 2025, then 1% from 2025 to 2027 and 1.75% from 2027 to 2030.
The new 2030 euro bonds will have a 0.5% interest rate from 2022 to 2025 and a rate of 0.75% from 2025 to 2030.
The formal proposal, delayed from mid-March by the coronavirus outbreak, implies over $40 billion of relief, mainly from reduced coupon payments.
The document will be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for approval.
(Reporting by Eliana Raszewski and Cassandra Garrison in Buenos Aires; Additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos in New York; Editing by Chris Reese and Daniel Wallis)
