Ghana Euro bondholders form Committee to support debt restructuring
External holders of Ghana’s Eurobond have formed a creditors committee to support the country’s debt restructuring programme to help it secure a $3 billion loan facility from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
This comes barely 24 hours after the Government announced the suspension of some of its external debt, including Eurobonds, Commercial term loans and bilateral debts and an earlier launch of a domestic debt exchange programme.
These efforts, together with revenue and expenditure measures in the 2023 budget, are to help restore macroeconomic confidence and stability in the Ghanaian economy and alleviate the sufferings of Ghanaians.
The Committee, with membership from mutual funds, asset managers, insurance firms, hedge funds, and family offices, have appointed Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, as its legal advisor, with Rothschild & Co, as their financial advisors.
In a release copied to Ghana News Agency on Monday, the Committee said they stood ready to support the Government for a swift engagement to resolve the current debt challenges.
It noted that: “Such resolution will require fair burden-sharing collaboration among Ghanaian authorities, private creditors both domestic and international and official sector creditors.”
It also said that a process of good faith negotiation would avoid unilateral actions and would require a prompt exchange of detailed economic and financial information with the Committee and all stakeholders.
They said their action was aimed at securing an outcome that was both equitable to creditors and responsive to the economic and social challenges facing Ghana.
It added that, “a key factor in measuring the success of Ghana’s debt resolution would be timely restoration of international market access, which remains critical for Ghana to meet its development objectives.”
Last week, the Government completed a Staff-Level Agreement (SLA) with the IMF for a loan-support programme and called on its creditors to respond in an expedited manner to ensure that the programme is adopted by the IMF Management and Executive Board by early 2023.
