Business

Cristina’s crumble: Argentina prez may offer Singer deal

(
)

It looks like Argentina is willing to bend — a little.

Officials of the South American country are weighing an “enhanced” offer to a group of holdout US bondholders led by Paul Singer’s Elliott Management, sources tell The Post.

Any enhanced payout to the holdouts, which refused to accept debt exchanges that 92 percent of bondholders took years ago, would mark a major change for the country.

In the past, President Cristina Kirchner has called Singer’s group “vultures” and swore she wouldn’t pay them a dime.

Argentina has until tomorrow to offer a Manhattan federal appeals court a new payoff plan.

Without significant concessions, the court could demand the nation pay the entire $1.44 billion it owes the holdouts the next time it makes a payment to its exchange bondholders.

As recently as February, Kirchner repeated that the country was willing to offer the holdouts the same deal it gave other bondholders in 2010, when it last restructured its defaulted debt — and no more.

That is not likely to satisfy the Singer group, nor the court, which has agreed the holdouts deserve more.

About $1 billion due the group are past-due interest payments.

Argentine press reports yesterday said Kirchner was mulling a plan that would, for the first time, recognize the interest payments, albeit at reduced levels.

Word of a possible enhanced payout comes in the wake of Argentina being denied this week a hearing before the full appellate court.

“It suggests little sympathy from the court to the arguments Argentina uses,” JPMorgan analyst Vladimir Werning said of the timing of the denial to appeal right before the deadline.

Elliott Management “reached out” to Argentina following a Feb. 27 hearing in New York, looking for “middle ground,” sources familiar with the situation said.

At the time the country was unwilling to negotiate, they said.