From the Vault: Lee Buchheit on "How to Restructure Greek Debt...
03/22/20
My sovereign debt class is discussing the March 2012 Greek debt restructuring on Tuesday afternoon. The magic here was in significant part the product of Lee Buchheit's genius. That said, I do not wish to discount the contributions of his star studded team, which had debt gurus like Andrew Shutter and Andres de la Cruz who played invaluable roles.
In class, we are thinking a lot about how Lee used the "local law advantage" in Greece. The reason being that we are (to put it mildly) somewhat focused on strategies that could be used to get Italy significant debt relief in the midst of this current crisis -- especially if the ECB drops the ball in terms of providing adequate financial assistance. Lee just announced his retirement, a few months ago. I'm hoping that he comes back out of it. (Hopefully, we can get him to answer questions via zoom on Tuesday).
From the vault, here are some amazing videos of Lee from both before and after the March 2012 restructuring. They are amazing because they give us a sense of how his thinking evolved as his strategy moved from a hypothetical thought experiment that had no chance of being implemented to the one plausible strategy left on the table.
Videos:
Lee – Plan B (June 21, 2010) (Pre Greek Restructuring) – start watching at 20 minute point in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Zvfn3DjdY
Lee -- The Options Now (in the wake of the Greek debt restructuring) (Nov. 6, 2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6G14SF4-sQ
The Options Now (Part II) (Q&A)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8bBWbKCdT8&t=26s
Lee, with an introduction by Ugo Panizza -- European debt restructuring/Greece (and some talk of Argentina) (Nov. 26, 2013)
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