A year-and-a-half since Peregrine Investments Holdings filed for liquidation in Hong Kong, an interesting debate is still raging over how to settle its swap book. The ultimate decision that will be sought from a UK court could have wide implications for the swap industry, and how much banks reserve against swaps with lesser credits.
Peregrine subsidiary Peregrine Fixed Income (PFI) wrote swaps with more than 200 counterparties. Many of them are companies in Thailand, Korea and Indonesia, where the currencies and credit ratings have taken a severe battering. PricewaterhouseCoopers, liquidators of Peregrine, reckon that, when they were appointed, PFI was owed about $500 million on swaps with good-credit counterparties, such as the western investment
banks. It is also trying to claim around $800 million to $900 million on swap agreements with lesser credits. Some of these swap agreements are "plain vanilla", others "were more complex off-balance-sheet transactions", says David Hague,...
