Puerto Rico agency promises more details at Tuesday creditor meeting

Puerto Rico's Government Development Bank said it will present the island's creditors with more details of the financial analyses supporting its debt restructuring plan at a meeting on Tuesday.



The U.S. commonwealth, seeking to turn around an economy buckling under $72 billion in debt and a 45 percent poverty rate, released a turnaround plan last month that would include restructuring $18 billion of debt.



Creditors have resisted debt reductions, complaining about a lack of financial disclosures from the Puerto Rican government.



In a statement on Tuesday morning, GDB said it would present more detail and answer bondholders' questions about its financial data, in its first public comments on the meeting first reported by Reuters last week.



“Today’s meeting ... is part of our ongoing efforts to maintain a constructive dialogue with the island’s creditors surrounding the voluntary restructuring of the Commonwealth’s debt in order to achieve a sustainable path forward,” GDB's president, Melba Acosta Febo, said in the statement.



It was not clear which bondholder groups would attend, but sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last week that representatives from Puerto Rico's general obligation and so-called COFINA bonds were likely to go.



The GBD's statement said the meeting would be open to bondholder groups whose advisers have signed nondisclosure agreements amid the ongoing restructuring talks.



The general obligation debt, guaranteed by Puerto Rico's constitution, is considered its highest-priority debt. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that some general obligation bondholders hired Goldin Associates as an adviser ahead of the meeting.



General obligation holders are expected to pressure Puerto Rico to repay them in full, even if it must recoup or "claw back" other bondholders' revenue streams to do so.



COFINA bondholders, backed by Puerto Rico's sales tax, have said they believe any clawback would be illegal because the revenue stream backing their debt was legislated in 2006 for the dedicated purpose of repaying their bonds..

By Nick Brown

Puerto Rico agency promises more details at Tuesday creditor meeting

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