Vulture fund

A vulture fund is a private equity or hedge fund that invests in debt considered
to be very weak or in imminent default. Investors in the fund profit by buying this
debt at a discounted price on a secondary market and then suing the debtor for a
larger amount than the purchasing price. Debtors can include companies,
countries or individuals. The term is used to criticize the fund for strategically
profiting off of debtors that are in financial distress.

The term is a metaphor used to compare the fund to the behavior of vulture birds
preying on debtors in financial distress by purchasing the now-cheap credit on
a secondary market to make a large monetary gain; in many cases, leaving the
debtor in a worse state.

Vulture funds have sometimes had success in bringing attachment and recovery
actions against sovereign debtor governments, usually settling with them before
actually realizing the attachments in forced sales. In one instance involving Peru,
such a seizure threatened payments to other creditors of the sovereign obliger. [1][2]
Settlements typically are made at a discount in hard or local currency or in the
form of new debt issuance. A related term is "vulture investing", where certain
stocks in near bankrupt companies are purchased upon anticipation of asset
divestiture or successful reorganization.

Contents
1 History

o 1.1 Legislation

o 1.2 International financial institutions

o 1.3 US administration

o 1.4 United Kingdom

2 Vulture funds in Latin America

o 2.1 Argentina

o 2.2 Peru

3 Vulture funds in Africa

4 See also

5 References
 6 External links

History
Sovereign debt collection was rare until the 1950s when sovereign immunity of
government issuers was restricted.[3] This trend developed due to the long history
of sovereign defaulting on commercial creditors with impunity. Accordingly
sovereign debt collection actions began in the 1950s. One example was the
freezing of Brazil's gold reserves held by the Federal Reserve.[4]

Investment in sovereign debt with the intent to recover was also restricted due to
the laws of champerty and maintenance and by the fact that most sovereign debt
was syndicated. Under the Doctrines of Champerty, it was illegal in England and
the United States to purchase a debt with the sole intent of litigating it.[5] The
distinction was made that if the debt was purchased to effect a recovery or
facilitate investment, the doctrine was not a bar. Most jurisdictions have now
eliminated the doctrine as archaic.

Similarly, sovereign debt owed to commercial creditors in the late 1980s was
principally held by bank syndicates. This was the result of the petrodollar crisis of
the 1970s when oil earnings were recycled into bank loans. The syndication of
debt among banks made recovery impractical as a fund intending to litigate had
to buy out the entire syndicate of holders or risk having the proceeds of litigation
attached pursuant to sharing clauses in the loan agreements.

As the 1980s progressed, debt rescheduling efforts in Latin America created

many new and easily traded instruments such as Brady bonds that brought new
players into the market, including banks and hedge funds. The original creditors
then wrote down their positions and sold the debt into the secondary marketa
market consisting of banks and investment funds focused on buying at discounts
to achieve above market returns on their investment.

In this process, much debt was repurchased and converted into local currency by
the sovereign country issuers in official debt conversion programs designed to
attract investment and in severely indebted countries through World Bank funded
buy-backs. The result is that the old syndicates were broken up and many
unrestructured syndicate "tails" were available for purchase at discounts
exceeding 80% of principal face value. That pricing encouraged funds to invest in
recovery actions, which would not otherwise make financial sense due to their
length and cost.

Legislation

In 2009, bipartisan legislation in the US Congress was introduced aimed to

prevent vulture funds from profiting on defaulted sovereign debt by capping the
amount of profit that a secondary creditor can win through litigation based on
those debts. The Stop VULTURE Funds Act[6] was supported by Rep. Maxine
Waters (D-CA), Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep.
Judy Biggert (R-IL). An interfaith poverty alleviation group, Jubilee USA Network,
supported the legislation citing the impact that vulture funds have on poor
countries. Similar legislation was introduced in the United Kingdom,[7] Belgium,[8]
the Jersey Isles,[9] the Isle of Man,[10] Australia,[11] Guernsey,[12] and France.

International financial institutions

The International Monetary Fund and World Bank noted that vulture funds
endanger the gains made by debt relief to poorest countries. "The Bank has
already delivered more than $40 billion in debt relief to 30 of these
countries...thanks to this, countries like Ghana can provide micro-credit to
farmers, build classrooms for their children, and fund water and sanitation
projects for the poor," wrote World Bank Vice President Danny Leipziger in 2007.
"Yet the activities of vulture funds threaten to undermine such efforts... the
strategies adopted by vulture funds divert much needed debt relief away from the
poorest countries on earth and into the bank accounts of the wealthy."[13]

US administration

The administration through the Justice Department came out in support of

Argentina in the case between NML Capital and Argentina,[14] arguing that a
ruling against Argentina could make it difficult for countries in financial distress
to get crucial debt swaps.[dead link]

United Kingdom

In 2002, the British Chancellor (and later Prime Minister) Gordon Brown told the
United Nations that it was "morally outrageous" and perverse that the vultures
made vast profits by buying up the debts of these poor countries cheaply and then
suing for ten or a hundred times what they paid for them.[15]

Vulture funds in Latin America

Argentina

In 2001, Argentina defaulted on roughly $81 billion. NML Capital, LTD., a hedge
fund that is a subsidiary of Paul Singer's Elliott Management Corporation,
purchased Argentine debt on a secondary market for a price lower than the
original amount. Ninety-two percent of creditors restructured in 2005 and 2010
for roughly $.30 on the dollar.[16] NML Capital rejected the proposal and sued
Argentina for the full amount in New York State courts.

The main argument that NML Capital has been using in court is a "pari passu"
clause that was in the original contractual agreement.[17] Pari passu is Latin for
"on equal footing" which means that if Argentina pays back one creditor, they
have to pay back all of the creditors, including those that did not restructure.
Since Argentina has already begun to repay the creditors that restructured, Elliot
argued that they should be paid back.

In June 2012, Elliot Management supported legislation in New York State Senate
and Assembly which would have allowed the fund to pursue post-court judgment.
Two poverty alleviation organizations, Jubilee USA Network and American Jewish
World Service, came out against the legislation citing the negative impacts that
vulture funds have on poor countries and mobilized New York State residents to
stop the legislation.[18] The legislation did not make it to a vote when the NY State
Senate and Assembly ended their session.

On October 2, 2012, NML Capital Ltd., a vulture fund based in the Cayman
Islands, which held Argentine debt not included in Argentine debt restructuring,
[19]
impounded the Libertad, an Argentine Navy training ship in Tema, Ghana. The
court in Ghana held that Argentina had waived sovereign immunity when it
contracted the sovereign debt being enforced.[20] There is also some doubt that
the ship could have been considered an otherwise immune military asset since
part of its "good will" visits to Africa included commercial negotiations, which
would have negated Argentine claims that the unarmed school-ship was purely
military.

Elliot made the pari passu argument and in November 2012, the New York State
court ruled in favor of the holdout creditors based on the clause and ordered
Argentina to pay $1.3 billion on December 15, the same date they were to pay the
creditors that restructured. The appeals court heard oral arguments on February
27.

Peru

In 1983, Peru was in economic distress and had large amounts of external debt.
In 1996, the nation restructured its debts. Original loans were exchanged for
Brady Bonds, tradable bonds issued in the original amount of the loans.

Elliott Associates, a New York-based hedge fund owned by Paul Singer, purchased
$20.7 million worth of defaulted loans made to Peru for a discounted price of
$11.4 million. Elliott Associates, holding the only portion of Peru's debt remaining
outside the restructure, sued Peru and won a $58 million settlementa 400%
return.

Peru, unable to pay the $58 million, continued to repay creditors that held Brady
Bonds. Elliot filed an injunction to prevent Peru from paying off its restructured
debt without also paying Elliott arguing that Peru violated the "pari passu" clause,
which states that no creditor could be given preferential treatment.

Vulture funds in Africa

In 2007, Donegal International bought Zambian debt from the 1970s for
$3 million and sued for $55 million in the British courts. The fund was awarded
and ultimately paid $15 million.[21] A series of attempts was then made in Britain
and the United States by organizations such as Oxfam and the Jubilee Debt
Campaign to change the laws so that vultures would not be able to collect on
their awards.[22]

In 2009 a British court awarded $20 million to vulture funds suing Liberia. Before
the vultures could collect their money the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Act
2010[23] was passed in the UK parliament in 2010 after Liberian president and
2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf appealed on the BBC
Newsnight programme for the vultures to "have a conscience and give this
country a break".[24]

That act caps what the vultures can collectthey had to settle with Liberia for
just over $1 millionand effectively prevents them suing for exorbitant amounts
of money in UK courts. Nick Dearden of the Jubilee Debt Campaign said of the
change: "It will mean the poorest countries in the world can no longer be
attacked by these reprehensible investment funds who grow fat from the misery
of others." The law was made permanent in 2011 but there are still havens for
this activity, such as Channel Islands and The British Virgin Isles.[25] Another
vulture fund, FG Hemisphere of Brooklyn, sued Democratic Republic of Congo for
a debt from Yugoslavia in the 1970s which it had picked up for just over
$3 million.

FG sued in Hong Kong, Australia, and Jersey which was not covered by the UK
law against vultures. The Chinese government blocked the attempt to sue in Hong
Kong but the Jersey court awarded $100 million to FG. FG's owner Peter
Grossman was doorstepped by freelance reporter Greg Palast and asked whether
he thought it was fair to take $100 million for a debt he had paid $3 million for.
He said "Yeah I do actuallyI'm not beating up the Congo I'm collecting on a
legitimate claim". A series of attempts was then made in Britain and the United
States by organizations such as Jubilee USA Network, Oxfam and the Jubilee Debt
Campaign to change the laws so that vultures would not be able to collect on
their awards. The Jubilee Debt Coalition is now calling on the Jersey government
to ban vultures collecting there too and Jersey is consulting on making that
change. Jubilee's Tim Jones went to Jersey in November 2011 to ask the
government to ban vulture funds there too. He told The Guardian that the
Democratic Republic of Congo "desperately needs to be able to use its rich
resources to alleviate poverty, not squander them on paying unjust debts".[26]

Vulture Fund FG Hemisphere run by financier Peter Grossman is attempting to

enforce an ICC arbitration award for $116 million owed by the Democratic
Republic of Congo. The award was originally issued by an arbitral panel of the
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in favor of Energoinvest DD of Bosnia
in the amount of $39 million and then sold to FG Hemisphere.[27] The award was
issued by the ICC in respect of unpaid construction contracts pursuant to which
Energoinvest supervised construction of high-tension power lines for transmission
of power from the IngaShaba dam in Congo; the power lines are still in service.
Sales of assets by Energoinvest have been criticized by opposition parties in
Bosnia as having been "an abuse of power" by the management who defend
themselves on the basis that the company had to sell assets in order to pay
salaries after it was impoverished and broken up in the break up of the former
Yugoslavia.