You did your first dollar bond since the default in July. What was the strategy behind that?
| Guillermo Nielsen, Finance secretary |
We are augmenting issues that are already in the market, be they peso-denominated or dollar bonds. But they are basically Bodens, which is post-restructuring debt, issued under local legislation. One of the lessons of the restructuring is that local versus international legislation doesn't make any significant difference, if any at all. We are in a truly globalized market. People that buy the bonds come from the usual hedge funds in New York, London and so on. What we have been doing is increasing the supply of bonds they already own.
We also had to be very careful during the restructuring process to disentangle the [huge] number of bonds and financial instruments. That made things very difficult to manage. So now we're keeping indebtedness in as few bonds as possible.
Who were the main investors in the dollar bond?
Hedge funds.
Do you think that the bond showed that investors have short memories?
[Pausing] No.
The yield was only 7.99%