George Georgiopoulos and Emmanuel Jarry
Reuters
French banks have agreed to roll over holdings of Greek debt for 30 years, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Monday, as the Greek government fought to persuade backbench rebels to back a crucial austerity plan to avert bankruptcy.
With financial markets watching the Greek crisis anxiously, Sarkozy told a news conference in Paris that the French authorities had reached an agreement with the banks on a voluntary rollover of maturing bonds.
“We concluded that by stretching out the loans over 30 years, putting (interest rates) at the level of European loans, plus a premium indexed to future Greek growth, that would be a system that each country could find attractive,” he said.
Banking sources confirmed that was part of an outline deal under which banks would reinvest 70 percent of the proceeds when Greek bonds fall due. Of that amount, 50 percent would go into the new 30-year bonds and 20 percent would be reinvested in a zero-coupon guaranteed fund based on high-quality securities.
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