Spain targets London investors for bad bank

Spain's Economy Minister will meet investors in London on Thursday in the hope of tempting them to buy into a 'bad bank' that will house billions of euros of the country's soured real estate assets.

Madrid hopes the newly formed asset management company will help unblock the credit flows to businesses and families that have been progressively choked off as the country's economic crisis has worsened.

Its creation is also a condition of Spain receiving up to 100 billion euros ($129 billion) in European aid to patch up its creaking banking system, overexposed to a housing boom that crashed in 2008.

Spain expects private investment to finance more than half the heavily written-down assets - including foreclosed property and bad loans - that lenders will transfer into the entity, which is expected to be in operation by early December.


Read more: Spain targets London investors for bad bank | Reuters

Greece convinces debtors to cut their losses and secures historical debt cut

Following weeks of intense and emotional meetings and discussions, the Greek government said today that 83.5 percent of private investors holding its government bonds were participating in a bond swap. Of the investors holding the euro177 billion ($234 billion) in bonds governed by Greek law, 85.8 percent joined.

"We have achieved an exceptional success ... and I believe everyone will soon realize that this is the only way to keep the country on its feet and give it a second historic chance that it needs," Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos told Parliament.

The investors will exchange their bonds with new ones worth 53.5 percent less in face value and easier repayment terms for Greece. A total of euro206 billion ($273 billion) of Greece's debt is in private hands. The swap will effectively shift the bulk of the remaining debt into public hands — mainly eurozone countries contributing to Greece's bailouts.

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