Seychelles Offers New Debt for the Bond Defaults

Read the article below very carefully.  Note the new bonds will be due in 2026 and 2041 - Albert Rene and James Michel will be long gone by then.  Christopher Gill is correct in saying that our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will pay for the folly-grandeur and of course the debts of Albert Rene, James Michel, Mukesh Valabhji, Francis Changleng, Glenny, David and Francis Savy, and all the other conniving thieves of the SPUP, SPPF and now Le Pep party.  

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Seychelles Offers New Debt for $311 Million Defaults - Bloomberg Press

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By Garth Theunissen

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Seychelles has offered holders of more than $311 million of its defaulted debt to exchange the instruments for new securities, according to a statement.

The Indian ocean archipelago off Africa’s east coast will offer a step-up bond due July 1, 2026, that will pay interest of between 3 percent and 8 percent over its duration, said Stuart Culverhouse, chief economist at Exotix Ltd., who cited a prospectus for the instruments. It will also offer a 2 percent fixed rate bond due July 1, 2041, he added.

“It’s got a bit of baggage but I’d imagine that the majority of creditors would sign up to the deal,” Culverhouse said in a phone interview from London. “The interest payments on these bonds are quite low and will be more in line with the government’s debt servicing capacity than the previous instruments.”

Seychelles missed payments on 54.75 million-euro ($81 million) of privately placed securities due 2011 in July 2008 as well as $230 million of 9.125 percent government bonds due 2011 in October of the same year as rising oil prices and falling tourism reduced government revenue. At the time, the default was the first by any sovereign nation since Belize in 2006, and prompted an emergency loan from the International Monetary Fund to help the nation meet spiraling debt-service costs.

The IMF bailout involved instituting a series of measures to reform the financial system, one of which was allowing the Seychellois rupee to trade as a free-floating currency. The Victoria-based Central Bank of Seychelles had previously pegged the rupee to a basket comprising the euro, dollar and pound, currencies in which it received the majority of its revenue from tourism and trade.

Rupee Decline

The rupee, which lost as much as 53 percent to more than 24 per euro following the decision to free float the currency from Nov. 3, 2008, has recovered 47 percent this year, Bloomberg data show. The currency gained 3.6 percent to 15.6788 today.

Seychelles will provide the bonds to holders “at the applicable exchange ratio,” according to a statement to the Regulatory News Service today. The new instruments will also be offered in exchange for “certain loans,” the statement added.

The 2026 bond will pay an interest rate of 3 percent from Jan. 1 next year, which will increase to 5 percent on Jan. 1, 2012, 7 percent on Jan. 1, 2015, and 8 percent in Jan. 1, 2018, where it will remain for the remainder of the bond’s duration, according to Culverhouse. Both bonds will be repaid in equal instalments, payable semi-annually, he added.

Seychelles, a former British colony, comprises about 115 islands scattered over more than 1 million square kilometers (386,102 square miles) and has a population of about 84,000.

To contact the reporter on this story: Garth Theunissen in Johannesburggtheunissen@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 7, 2009 11:08 EST