Ecuador Wins Bondholders Approval for Debt Restructuring

Ecuador won the support of the majority of bondholders required to restructure $17.4 billion in international debt, reducing the South American nations obligations.

President Lenin Morenos government will exchange 10 existing notes maturing between 2022 and 2030 for three new bonds due in 2030, 2035 and 2040. Under the new terms, interest payments will resume at the beginning of next year, while the earliest principal comes due in January 2026.

“With this, we free up resources for social protection and economic recovery,” Moreno wrote in a tweet.

The debt accord gives Ecuador breathing room, well beyond when Morenos term ends next May. Still, political opponents have criticized the president and his finance team for not taking a more aggressive approach in the restructuring talks. At the same time, they won praise from key creditors who said Ecuador officials were more reasonable than their counterparts in Argentina, where negotiations have dragged on for months.

The Moreno government faced a late challenge when two creditors -- Greenwich, Connecticut-based hedge fund Contrarian Capital Management LLC and Boston-based GMO -- asked U.S. District Judge Valerie Caproni in Manhattan to block the restructuring, calling the nations tactics “coercive in the extreme.” She denied that request on Friday.

Ecuador‘s Finance Ministry said it will extend the deadline for creditors to participate in the debt offer until Aug. 7 to allow for holders who didn’t vote yet. The target date for the bond exchange is Aug. 12. The bond debt Ecuador is restructuring is close to a third of foreign debt. Its also aiming to reprofile bilateral debt with China, as well as to obtain new Chinese loans for $2.4 billion, and reach a successor deal with the International Monetary Fund, which supported the bond exchange, to the $4.2 billion agreement that collapsed amid the COVID-19 crisis.

Ecuador embarked on a debt-sale spree in 2014 to offset a decline in the price of oil, its main export. Mounting financial trouble led the country to sign the pact with the IMF in early 2019. Its debt woes were exacerbated by the pandemic. Ecuador is suffering one of the worlds highest death rates from the virus.

(Updates with terms of bond exchange, background, in final paragraph)