Coye on What Superbond Deal Means for Belizean Society

 Although he is still in Mexico City as part of G.O.B.’s official delegation, this morning Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Christopher Coye joined Channel Five’s Open Your Eyes via zoom to talk about the progress of the offering to bondholders. The Minister of State said the recent salary cuts and other fiscal measures built credibility with the bondholders, showing Belize is serious about turning the economy around. He says the good public relations work carried out by their advisors as well as the marine conservation component are what helped to bring eighty-five percent of the bond holders on board. He credits the Nature Conservancy as helping to create an innovative arrangement. At the moment, there are still details to be hammered out with TNC before the deal is finalized.

Christopher Coye, Minister of State, Finance

“The Nature Conservancy is obviously the key player, and in effect the key arranger for…and the procumbent of this Blue Bond financing. Ultimately, that structure is not necessarily a loan from the nature conservancy, but, in fact, a private market transaction that they play an arranger role in fact. Credit Swiss, in effect, is the underwriter of that…of those Blue Bonds. And ultimately, the financing will come from the Blue Bond bond holders. And that, it’s a little bit of a complicated structure, but that is where the really will be coming from. It’s a very innovative transaction that will involve certain financial terms that will enable us to gain cash flow relief. But also, and beyond the debt relief that we are getting, but also, it helps us, for example, to look at situations where we might have natural disasters. So, it encompasses and includes catastrophic risk insurance, so that in the event we might have natural disasters and are not able to pay or would be better off focusing some of our funds dealing with those natural disasters as opposed to servicing them. That catastrophic risk insurance will support us during that period of time during that period of time.”