9 March 2012

Athens, Greece:  Evangelos Venizelos, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the Hellenic Republic, today announced that holders of approximately €172 billion principal amount of bonds issued or guaranteed by the Republic have tendered their bonds for exchange or consented to proposed amendments in response to the invitations and consent solicitations announced by the Republic on 24 February 2012.

Of the approximately €177 billion of bonds issued by the Republic and governed by Greek law and subject to the invitations, the Republic has received tenders for exchange and consents from holders of approximately €152 billion face amount of bonds, representing 85.8% of the outstanding face amount of these bonds.  Holders of 5.3% of the outstanding face amount of these bonds participated in the consent solicitation and opposed the proposed amendments.  The Republic has advised its official sector creditors that upon confirmation and certification by the Bank of Greece as process manager under the Greek Bondholder Act (Law 4050/2012), it intends to accept the consents received and amend the terms of all of its Greek law governed bonds, including those not tendered for exchange pursuant to the invitations, in accordance with the terms of the Greek Bondholder Act. Accordingly, the Republic will not extend the invitation period for its bonds governed by Greek law.  

The Press Office of the Greek Ministry of Finance released the following statement:

One of today’s Reuters reports includes a quote –unnamed of course- of a Eurozone official who is reportedly saying that the Greek Finance Minister “is very hard to get hold of because he is very busy campaigning for the leadership of PASOK, so he is not available to meet with Troika members.”

This anonymous quote seems ridiculous if not suspicious to all those who have a basic knowledge of the Finance Minister’s daily schedule of long meetings with the troika representatives, his constant contacts with his counterparts and heads of institutions involved in the troika, the continuous working meetings with the Prime Minister, the teleconferences, the successive contacts with the IIF for the PSI and generally the superhuman efforts made 24 hours a day by a small group of people led by the Greek Minister of Finance.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos has contacted the Eurogroup President and Prime Minister of Luxembourg Mr. J. C. Juncker to inform him on the Reuters story. Mr. Juncker authorized Mr. Venizelos to state that this report is out of touch with reality.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of the Hellenic Republic, Evangelos Venizelos, met yesterday, Monday July 25 2011 in Washington DC with US Senators Tim Johnson, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affair and John F. Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, thus concluding his round of meetings in the US capital.

Later on, Minister Venizelos, before an audience of academicians, economists, journalists and other opinion makers, delivered a speech at the Peterson Institute for International Economics entitled “Greek debt crisis: challenges and opportunities”.