Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World

by Adam Tooze

To describe the debt restructuring of 2012 in these terms—as no more than a continuation of the makeshift measures that had characterized the Greek debt crisis from the beginning—may seem unduly dismissive. The restructuring that was forced on the creditors of Greece between February and April of 2012 was the largest and most severe in history, larger in inflation-adjusted terms than the Russian revolutionary default or Germany’s default of the 1930s.9 By April 26, 2012, 199.2 billion euros in Greek government bonds were converted in exchange for 29.7 billion in short-term cash equivalent notes drawn on the EFSF and 62.4 billion in new long-term bonds at concessionary rates. All told, Greece’s private creditors had conceded a reduction of 107 billion euros. Allowing for the much later repayment of the new long-term bonds, the net present value of claims on Greece was cut by 65 percent. In December 2012 the claims of private creditors were further reduced by a buyback of the recently issued long-dated bonds.

Good summary