The Secretary of Finance, Eduardo Setti, came out to deny the possibility of renegotiating the debt in dollars with private creditors for 2024. The version had emerged from journalistic comments that were replicated in the market. Instead, the Government focuses on the debt in pesos and claims to prepare “measures that have not been applied in Argentina” for the next tender. “The national government is not working on or evaluating any alternative for postponing payments.” of interests on securities in foreign currency, which we consider delusional and that only seek to increase the volatility of the markets,” Setti published on his X account (exTwitter). The clarification responds to Carlos Pagni’s editorial on the LN + channel, where he highlighted that a foreign financial entity proposed a renegotiation with private bondholders. “Could you push that maturity (January interest rate) forward by improving the interest rate? “These are speculations that are already circulating in the bond market,” he said. Next year, between capital and interest, US$4,410 million will mature with the bondholders. However, the economic management of Unión por la Patria denies that there is any such proposal on the table. In fact, Setti’s tweet was an indication of the Minister of Economy and candidate for President, Sergio Massa. “We did not have a single conversation with Massa or calls from banks to discuss this issue…”, they say from Finance. The last signal that Massa gave to the international markets was on October 24 in front of foreign media. At a press conference, he criticized the debt exchange carried out by former Minister of Economy Martín Guzmán, which he described as “terrible” because “it is the only exchange in world economic history that the day after it was completed, the value of the debts fell. bonds instead of going up.” That is why he advanced the study of premium and payment anticipation mechanisms in Argentine bonds so that the sovereign securities market regains depth and confidence. In any case, there was no progress on this candidate’s proposal either. The thing is that, as they explain in Finance, in this context crossed by the ballot, “there is no conversation about touching debt in dollars, and even less re-profile or default.” “We speak with the banks daily, but until now no one has called to consult about this proposal,” they say in the Secretariat. What Massa announced at that time aimed to give purposeful signals to the market for the recovery of confidence and accessibility to international financing. But, first, the Government says, they must think about “the necessary conditions for it to be credible and for political validation.” At the moment, and as the first instance of the same objective, the next debt tender in pesos that will be held next Tuesday for $1.2 or 1.3 trillion is at the center of the scene. In that sense, they confirm that they will apply measures aimed at the operation “that were never done in Argentina”, and will probably be announced this Friday. Improving the deficit along with the accumulation of reserves are priority measures to bring peace of mind in this context. For Matías de Luca, an economist at the consulting firm LCG, renegotiating private debt next year “would not be the most appropriate, considering that the bonds of the American Treasury yield 5% in dollars.” Nor does Sebastián Menescaldi, director of the consulting firm EcoGo, make sense of the proposal. “It is a debt that pays very little interest and does not mature as much next year,” he says. At the same time, he warns that the problem will be in 2025, because the maturities with private creditors overlap with maturities agreed with the International Monetary Fund. “The candidate who wins the elections will have to campaign with the IMF to disburse something or get, like last time, some bridge of that style or a REPO to be able to pay,” analyzes the economist. Otherwise, touching the debt back would mean that what is paid 1% today would have to rise to 7% or 8%, or much more, which would mean that financially I would say that it is not convenient,” concludes Menescaldi.
Source: Ambito
