With a possible default less than three days away, Argentine officials will fly back to New York Monday evening to meet with the mediator in an attempt to settle a decade-long battle with billionaire Paul Singer and other hedge funds.
A meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m. Tuesday with Daniel Pollack, the special master assigned by Manhattan federal Judge Thomas Griesa to force a resolution of the case.
The delegation, which includes “technical, financial and legal representatives” of Argentina, is not slated to meet with Singer’s representatives, Pollack said in a statement Monday.
“I again urged direct, face-to-face conversations with the bondholders, but that will not happen tomorrow,” he said.
Pollack said he urged Argentina to continue talks because of “ the gravity of this situation and the shortness of time to resolve it without default.”
The country has until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to strike a deal on payouts on its 2001 defaulted bonds or risk being in default — unless Griesa grants an immediate stay of his orders, which so far he has resisted doing.
Griesa ordered Argentina to pay the Singer group, the so-called holdout bondholders, $1.65 billion when it pays the exchange bondholders — those who accepted new, lower-yielding bonds.
The June payment on the exchange bonds is due, including a 30-day grace period, on July 30.
Argentina claims it has already skirted any chance at default by wiring the money for the interest payment on the exchange bonds — $539 million — to Bank of New York Mellon, which has held onto it to avoid a contempt citation by Griesa.
But Wall Street seems to disagree.
The price on Argentine government debt fell 2.45 cents to 81.77 cents as of Monday afternoon, according to Bloomberg. The bonds had gotten as high as 95 cents on the hopes of a deal, but have been falling over the past week.