Executing a multi-billion debt deal is always a daunting
prospect, but when a country's entire economic survival plan
depends on it, the exercise can be hair-raising, as the seven
lead-managers of Argentina's voluntary debt exchange discovered in
June.
If the bankers needed any more motivation to make every call, to
consider every technical twist to make the deal work, they might
have considered that the near-term prospects of the business in
which they work - emerging-debt capital markets - also depended on
the outcome.
The $29.5 billion deal, undertaken by CSFB and JPMorgan, was a
tremendous success in its structure and execution. It achieved its
prime objective of giving Argentine economy minister Domingo
Cavallo some breathing space to concentrate on economic reform by
staving off a meltdown in the sovereign's bonds and an imminent
liquidity crisis.
The deal was bigger than the $20 billion originally expected, and
eventually involved replacing $29.5 billion...
