JANUARY 2019

DEBT ISLAND
Wall Street Closes in on 40 Years of Profit
at Puerto Rico’s Expense

Little Sis: Public Accountability Initiative January 2019 — Debt Island 1

 Debt Island:
Wall Street Closes in on 40 Years of Profit
at Puerto Rico’s Expense
An important chapter in the story of the Puerto Rican debt crisis is coming to an end this month, as an
adjustment plan around sales tax-backed, or COFINA, debt has been voted on by creditors and will likely
be approved by the federal court overseeing the restructuring process in mid-January. The agreement
will lock in 40 years of payments to Wall Street bondholders, with deep consequences for Puerto Rico.
Hedge fund billionaires are on the verge of pulling off what seemed unthinkable in the wake of
Hurricane Maria: a massive payday, at the direct expense of the Puerto Rican people, on debt that was
trading for pennies on the dollar in the months following the hurricane. As a result of debt restructuring
agreements like the COFINA plan, an island reeling from economic and climate-induced crisis will be
paying for billionaire yachts and vacation homes instead of basic necessities and a just recovery.
But more is coming: in 2019, another major adjustment plan concerning the commonwealth’s debt will
need to be developed by the oversight board and approved by creditors.
This report outlines basic information about the COFINA adjustment plan and where it stands, the next
plan to come, the shocking extent to which promised debt service rose as a result of the hurricanes, two
of the billionaires profiting – and what is to be done.

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 The COFINA Plan and Approval Process
The COFINA adjustment plan is a sign of what is to come in the next adjustment plan: indefensibly
and unsustainably high debt service payments, over the course of the next 40 years, that will
necessarily lead to extreme austerity measures. Mass layoffs, pension cuts, and deep cuts to
Medicaid and other essential services are the clear consequences of these plans and their financial
terms (not to mention a sales tax rate that will remain sky-high); Puerto Ricans will be forced to pay for
Wall Street’s profits.
As a result of the plan, COFINA debt principal will be reduced from $17.6 to $11.9 billion, or a 32%
reduction – though overall, when interest payments are included, the total debt service will be $32.3
billion over 40 years. This includes a 7% haircut for senior COFINA bonds, and a 46% haircut for
subordinated COFINA bonds.
Governor Rossello and the oversight board have hailed this as a victory and as significant debt relief, but
vulture funds that bought Puerto Rico’s bonds at low prices will be securing massive profits – by our
estimates, some hedge funds will be profiting to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars1. The deal has
been widely criticized2 as being far too generous for bondholders, including from some unlikely corners
(such as former Obama administration official, banker, and PROMESA architect Antonio Weiss).3
The COFINA plan is subject to approval by creditors, who had until January 8 to vote on the plan. On
January 16, it will go before Judge Laura Swain for final approval. The voting process surrounding these
agreements is yet another illustration of just how anti-democratic the restructuring is: only creditors are
allowed to vote.
Some Puerto Ricans will be able to register their dissent in the voting process, since anyone with
government claims, such as retired public employees, is able to vote. However, while there will be many,
possibly hundreds of thousands, of non-Wall Street voters, hedge funds have the upper hand: the
agreements can technically move forward with approval of just one class of voters (such as a class of
bondholders) through a process called “cramdown.”.

1 https://news.littlesis.org/2018/11/20/the-cofina-agreement-part-2-profits-for-the-few
2 http://cepr.net/blogs/the-americas-blog/puerto-rico-s-crisis-has-been-good-for-many-just-not-the-island-s-residents
3 https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-08/puerto-rico-needs-a-better-debt-deal

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 The Next Major Plan
The Oversight Board has stated4 that an adjustment plan for central government debt will be negotiated
in the coming months. Commonwealth debt is the second largest slice of the total debt, $13.2 billion,
mostly held by general obligations bondholders (GO’s). Since the COFINA plan of adjustment
established a precedent, the Commonwealth plan will also likely be for 40 years. This plan will be
developed by the oversight board and negotiated in a process overseen by federally-appointed
mediators.
This agreement will be extremely important because it will determine how much of the General Fund
will go to the bondholders. That means future funding for education, health, and housing will be on the
negotiating table. The more they take to pay the debt, the less there will be for essential services.
The approval of the Commonwealth’s adjustment plan will hinge on another voting process – all
creditors, including any person with some kind of claim against the central government, will have a vote.
Voters will be divided in groups according to their class of claims. As noted above, the agreement can be
forced through via a process called “cramdown” as long as one class of creditors votes to accept the plan.
Hedge funds, who have the biggest portion of the debt, will likely vote yes to the plan, since it will likely
promise high bond payments. But active public employees, retirees, government vendors and all persons
with claims against the Commonwealth will also get to vote.

Hurricane Recovery Money Padding Vulture

Fund Profits
Why is the Oversight Board promising so much money to bondholders? It turns out that hurricane
recovery funds are playing a significantly role – not in paying bondholders directly, but in indirectly
padding and subsidizing bond payments.
The restructuring should have taken a much different path following the hurricane: debt held by Wall
Street vultures should have been canceled in order to free up resources for a just recovery. Instead, the
federal recovery money is padding short-term economic and fiscal projections. As a result, the Wall
Street-captured Oversight Board has promised much higher payments to bondholders, post-hurricane,
than they were offering pre-hurricane.
This is evident in the oversight board’s fiscal plans. From its March 2017 fiscal plan5 (pre-Maria) to its
October 2018 fiscal plan6 (post-Maria), the fiscal board doubled debt service payments, apparently based
on projections bolstered by hurricane recovery money (Oversight Board member Andrew Biggs
described this as “economic feedback”7 in an October 2018 tweet).
Rather than leveraging these resources to strengthen essential services and infrastructure, the oversight
board is promising it to Wall Street.

4 https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/locales/nota/lajuntadesupervisionfiscalponderaajustealosbonistas-2466563/
5 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1H7ucE-d_dyV0TR0JIsJakOiBfbIAI4gv/view
6 https://drive.google.com/file/d/17ca0ALe7vpYn0jEzTz3RfykpsFSM0ujK/view
7 https://twitter.com/biggsag/status/1055487342171979776

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 The Billionaires Profiting
What is devastating for the vast majority of Puerto Ricans means huge profits for vulture funds.
They are managed by billionaires who are the principal winners in these restructuring agreements. Who
are they?
Seth Klarman is the billionaire CEO of the Baupost Group, a Boston based hedge fund founded in 1982
known for its investments in distressed assets. It owns8 more than $900 million in COFINA bonds. It
invested big in Puerto Rico’s debt in the second half of 2015, when it incorporated ten companies in
Delaware called Decagon Holdings with the purpose of hiding its identity.
Baupost investors include some of the wealthiest universities in the world, including Ivy League
universities like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, some of the wealthiest universities in the world which will be
making significant profits at the expense of Puerto Rico.
Another profiteer that recently has been very aggressive in its investments is Steve Tananbaum from
GoldenTree Asset Management. GoldenTree now ranks in the top three Puerto Rico bondholders with
more than $2 billion in COFINA and general obligation bonds. Taking advantage of the chaos caused by
hurricane Maria, GoldenTree invested more than $400 million in COFINA subordinated debt between
October 20179 and April 201810. With the COFINA deal as it is, GoldenTree can expect profits of around
$160 million from these investments alone.
GoldenTree has a wide array of investors, including public and private universities from the US like Miami
University11 and the University of Maine System12. It also manages money for some public pension fund
systems (including Los Angeles County, Boston, New York State, and Texas).
Tilden Park Capital Management is another hedge fund that has been investing big lately in Puerto Rico’s
debt. It was founded and is directed by Josh Birnbaum, former managing director at Goldman Sachs who
left the bank to found Tilden in 2009. Birnbaum is known for being one of the traders that devised
Goldman Sachs investment strategy that took advantage of the 2007-2008 financial crisis. Betting against
the mortgage market, he made $17 million13 in compensation.
Tilden Park has more than $950 million14 in COFINA bonds.15 It also took advantage of the plummeting
prices following Hurricane Maria, scooping up around $282 million in COFINA subordinated debt between
October 201716 and April 201817. From these investments Tilden Park can expect profits around $110 million.
Tilden Park Capital Management manages the investments for some retirement systems also, such as the
Teachers Retirement System of the State of Illinois and the New York State and Local Retirement System.

8 https://cases.primeclerk.com/puertorico/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=ODk5ODcw&id2=0
9 https://cases.primeclerk.com/puertorico/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=NzExNDA2&id2=0
10 https://cases.primeclerk.com/puertorico/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=NzMxNTUx&id2=0
11 https://miamioh.edu/_files/documents/about-miami/president/bot/2017/FA_12-07-17.pdf
12 http://staticweb.maine.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Meeting-Materials78.pdf?0d0f03
13 https://www.lacera.com/about_lacera/boi/meetings/2018-08-08-boi_agnd.pdf
14 https://cases.primeclerk.com/puertorico/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=ODk5ODcw&id2=0
15 https://cases.primeclerk.com/puertorico/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=ODk5ODcw&id2=0
16 https://cases.primeclerk.com/puertorico/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=NzExNDA2&id2=0
17 https://cases.primeclerk.com/puertorico/Home-DownloadPDF?id1=NzMxNTUx&id2=0

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 What Is To Be Done?
As the approval process for the next adjustment plan unfolds, some Puerto Ricans with claims
against the government, such as retirees, will have the opportunity to vote no. While rejection by
these voters will not override a bondholder yes vote, it will put pressure on the process. Also, as shown in
the debt restructuring process of the Government Development Bank and COFINA, the Puerto Rican
legislature can play a role and vote against the enabling legislation for yet another disastrous adjustment
plan. Even though the Fiscal Board’s authority has significantly undermined the legislature’s power, it will
need its consent to pursue a major restructuring in the Commonwealth’s plan of adjustment.
Beyond that, those who cannot vote can say no in the informal corridors of power, on the streets and in
the airwaves – no to money for Wall Street at the expense of basic services and necessary infrastruc-
ture, no to 40 years of creditor control, no to a corrupt process that prioritizes the value of payments to
bondholders over the value of human life.
This, ultimately, is the only thing standing in the way of Wall Street’s takeover of the next 40 years
of Puerto Rico’s future: a rejection by the Puerto Rican people of these adjustment plans.
Significant public pressure could force the oversight board, the federal judge, and her appointed mediators
to stop working for Wall Street; it could keep the Puerto Rican legislature from passing any legislation
necessary to put the plans into effect; and it could ultimately force Wall Street creditors to accept less
profitable terms that do not clear the way for deep austerity and corporate control.

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