Business

No payback for Singer this year

Paul Singer’s last-ditch attempt to get cash from Argentina this year has failed.

A motion by Singer’s hedge fund, Elliott Management, requesting that the South American country put up a security deposit of $250 million by Dec. 10 was denied by a federal appeals court yesterday.

“Since we will not have a big payment for ages (if ever), this looks like a huge blow to [Elliott’s] strategy,” said sovereign-debt expert Anna Gelpern.

The appellate slap-down of the billionaire hedgie is the second in a week. Last week, the same panel overturned a decision by a District Court judge that would have required Argentina to put $1.3 billion in escrow to pay Elliott by Dec. 15, pending further appeals in a legal battle that has dragged on for a decade.

Argentina is scheduled to pay $3 billion on Dec. 15 to exchange bondholders who agreed to big write-downs on their debt. Elliott and other so-called holdouts did not agree to the restructuring and are demanding full repayment.

District Judge Thomas Griesa ruled Singer and his band of holdout bondholders were entitled to get paid in full when Argentina made payments to the others.

The concerns of exchange bondholders — as well as other third parties involved in making the payments, such as Bank of New York — were ignored by Griesa.

But the appeals court decided to give them time to make their case. It allowed the other bondholders — led by hedge funds Gramercy, Brevan Howard and Alliance Bernstein — to intervene in the case.

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals panel in Manhattan also set up a schedule for a fuller hearing of the argument, which stretches into late February.