ZN.UA
A meeting with the bondholders to hold a vote in support of the terms of Ukraine's debt exchange offer is scheduled for tomorrow, October 14, according to an Annex to the Exchange Offer Memorandum posted on the website of the London Stock Exchange.
Earlier, the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance reported that holding of a meeting with the creditors was expected on October 14, while Ukraine reserved the right to extend the period for accepting applications from the creditors, shift the meeting to a later date and/or convene an additional meeting.
As UNIAN reported earlier, on August 27, the Ukrainian government reached an agreement with the creditors' ad hoc committee on restructuring part of the public debt totaling $18 billion. The restructuring involves a write-off of $3.8 billion, deferral of principal payments in the amount of $11.5 billion for four years, as well as setting a coupon rate at 7.75%.
On September 23, the Ukrainian government launched the restructuring process of Ukraine's public and government-backed debt and its write-off. The restructuring deal is planned to be completed by December 1, 2015. To complete the debt restructuring process, the Ukrainian government announced a halt to debt servicing payments. Moreover, the suspension of payments is said to be a technical one, affecting nine out of 14 series of government domestic loan bonds and government-backed Eurobonds of state enterprise Fininpro included in the restructuring deal, as well as Eurobonds maturing in September and October 2015.
Also, Kyiv city authorities announced they would introduce a temporary moratorium on the city's external debt payments to be effective as of November 6. Within the framework of this decision, debt payments are suspended under two loans worth a total of $550 million attracted in 2005 and 2011 through the placement of Eurobonds.
The restructuring perimeter also includes a loan which Ukraine received in the framework of agreements between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the then Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. The loan was granted on December, 2013, in exchange for Ukrainian Eurobonds worth $3 billion. The fact that the bonds were purchased via the Irish stock exchange makes the disbursement a private creditor debt. However, the Russian side insists that this is an interstate debt, as the buyer was a state-owned National Wealth Fund.