Belize Working on Deal to Cut Super Bond
John Briceño
Six months of discussions between the government and the committee representing the super bond holders have resulted in an agreement in principle between the parties. As Prime Minister John Briceño explained to reporters during a short break of today’s House Meeting in Belmopan, the bondholders hold almost half of the so-called “super bond,” whose outstanding bonds Belize will seek to purchase, redeem and cancel. The details are complex and the transaction is still being worked out, but a portion of it involves blue bonds financing or carbon financing where The Nature Conservancy will work to finance the acquisition of conservation lands in Belize to be held upon trust by the Belize Maya Forest Trust, a not-for-profit company for the benefit of Belize. Prime Minister Briceño assured that Belize’s forests are not going to be held in trust by this new agreement. He said he was confident that the deal can be worked out and was of the view that this is the best possible deal they could have struck, with savings in the hundreds of millions of dollars for Belize.
Prime Minister John Briceño
“For us to consummate this deal, we must have a seventy-five percent buy-in of the bondholders. Now, this is the best deal that we can offer to the bondholders. And it’s either all in or nothing, so I just want to make it very clear that we hope and expect that we could reach the seventy-five percent threshold so that by doing that, then we could get rid of the entire super bond and then come up with what we call now the Blue Bonds and we’ll be moving it from that once we do the financing and everything. I just want to reiterate that this is the best deal that we can offer to the bondholders. It was a long process, but we are very excited about the prospects of finally putting the end to this super bond saga. Next week I promise you to give even further details as to the amount of money we are going to save but it is going to be to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars that we will save. TNC, through their efforts we are working on the financing of this deal. But I’ll be able to give more details – exciting things that will happen once that is consummated next week. Our forests are not going to be held in trust. It’s going to be more marine conservation and it is going to be conservation beyond the reef into our exclusive economic zone.”
Bondholders who tender their bonds will receive a cash payment equal to five hundred and fifty dollars per one thousand dollars of the outstanding principal of the bonds in lieu of accrued and unpaid interest on the bonds up to October nineteenth, 2021.
