Touched by the
suspicions
that some people were better informed than others and took advantage of that advantage to buy debt bonds
before the
buyback announcement, the Minister of Economy, Sergio Massa, would be willing to order the
opening of a summary
in the National Commission of Securities for the capital market regulatory authority to investigate whether or not there was any criminal act.
In the jargon of the financial markets, it will seek to determine if someone made an improper gain by
taking advantage of what is called "insider information."
Beyond the summary that would be opened in the CNV, there is also the certain possibility that the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC),
the regulatory authority for the United States markets, will carry out its own investigation, given that the possible illegal maneuvers, if they existed , were made with bonds that the Argentine Republic registered in that market, since a part of the bonds were
issued under United States legislation.
Suspicions turn, above all, to the
strong increase in the volume traded
in certain bonds in the two previous rounds -Monday and Tuesday- to the repurchase announcement, which was
recorded on Tuesday night and broadcast on Wednesday at 9 in the morning. .
Economy, it was said this Friday at the Treasury Palace, would not miss the opportunity to point out, as was customary in this Government, the management of the government of Mauricio Macri.
Specifically, there was talk of a repurchase of debt securities
that was announced but never carried out.
It is, specifically, the announcement made by the former Finance Minister, Luis Caputo, of the official intention to
repurchase PBI coupons,
issued during the 2005 debt swap. For this purpose, Finance had issued debt for
2,750 million dollars,
that would be applied to finance the repurchase of coupons.
The operation was never carried out
, because the legal guarantees were not given due to the fact that the GDP figures had been questioned by the creditors, given that the manipulation of the inflation rates applied by the governments of Néstor and Cristina Kirchner They acted in two ways: they
lowered inflation but artificially inflated GDP.
This derived, by case, in
a trial, still without resolution, promoted by the investment fund Aurelius
.
Given this scenario, former minister Caputo decided not to proceed with the operation.
But since money is fungible, the $2.75 billion
was used to finance the fiscal deficit.
An uncertain outlook now opens for the bond repurchase operation launched this Wednesday by Minister Sergio Massa.
The uncertainty is not only legal, but
its effectiveness is also doubted,
given the path that bonds are having, financial exchange rates and the so-called exchange rate gap.
Sources close to Massa, regardless of the complaints, tried to justify the announcements although laterally they recognize that the priority today, more than the debt buyback,
is to control the parallel exchange market.
In this sense, they point out that since the end of December 2022 "some
tensions have been showing in the parallel exchange markets
."
In those days, the blue exchange rate started trading above the CCL in the last week of December and began to rise steadily from January 9.
“This movement in the blue began to be transmitted to the MEP and the CCL a couple of days later.
Between January 10 and January 17, the CCL went from $330 to $352, while the MEP went from $325 to almost $350, in what was clearly acquiring a typical currency run dynamic.
This is evident in the volumes traded in the purchase round against pesos, which on January 17 reached their maximum daily level in the last two years."
Based on the market dynamics between January 10 and January 17 and the effects generated by the repurchase, they say close to Massa, "we can formulate
two very different cases
that could have been linked to criminal conduct, it being opportune that the Justice initiates an investigation to clarify the facts.”
They continue like this: “First of all, there are agents who may have encouraged a currency run, manipulating the market to generate panic and force a dollarization among Argentine savers who, we know, are very sensitive to sudden fluctuations in dollar prices.
Due to what was explained in the previous paragraphs, if there was someone who did this, they were necessarily operating the GD30 buying with pesos and/or selling against USD, especially on January 16 and 17, days of high volume in the negotiation round in pesos”.
And it closes with the
acceptance of possible illegal maneuvers.
“Also, there are those who may have used inside information associated with the buyback announcement to obtain a profit from an increase in the dollar price of the bonds.
If there was someone doing an insider trading operation, they necessarily took a position buying GD30 with dollars, because as we explained before, the trend of the parallel exchange rates was clearly upwards.”
