THE ECONOMY MINISTER ORDERED AN INVESTIGATION / Web
Economy Minister Sergio Massa ordered the National Securities Commission (CNV, the market regulator) to investigate whether the announcement of the repurchase of US$1 billion in sovereign debt was leaked before being made official and thus allowed investors to benefit from operating with privileged information. And he invited the opposition to follow the summary.
The national official instructed Sebastián Negri, head of the CNV, to initiate investigations to determine the possible leak of sensitive information, the existence of speculative maneuvers with sovereign bonds and the identification of possible beneficiaries.
The order of the head of the Treasury to his subordinate also tells him to appear in a case that began in the Federal Court No. 6 of the Autonomous City and that bears the title “SAMCHEZ KLABERMATTEN ALEJANDRO s / Investigation of crime” that investigates these alleged maneuvers speculative. Massa asks Negri to make himself available to the court and provide the list of people and companies that purchased bonds whose prices were influenced by the announcement of the repurchase in the previous days.
SUSPICIONS
The repurchase of debt titles opened a cloak of suspicion about the actions of the Minister of Economy that led the opposition to demand in Congress that it be reported who acquired and benefited from the purchase of those bonds.
What caught the attention of the opposition deputies and senators was that the Tigrense man recorded the message with the announcement on Tuesday the 17th, in the afternoon, but the measure was only released on Wednesday morning before the market opened.
For the senator from Salta, Juan Carlos Romero, “it seems like an operation planned in advance and from which some sectors could have learned of the announcement and benefited.” For this reason, the dissident Peronist presented a project through which he demands that the Government explain the grounds for the debt repurchase announced by the head of the Palace of Finance.
For the opposition, the minister’s move arouses at least suspicion, since the titles are bought at 35 dollars when they could have been acquired earlier at 20, without mentioning that the Government received a recommendation to repurchase those titles last year when their price was minor. A group of representatives from Juntos por el Cambio, headed by Fernando Iglesias, presented a draft resolution asking Massa to be summoned to explain the measure in Congress.
Last Wednesday, an hour before the opening of the local market, Massa announced that the Central Bank would repurchase more than US$1,000 million in sovereign bonds in dollars, on behalf and by order of the National Treasury.
In the announcement, the Minister explained the initiative as an effort aimed at lowering country risk and improving the debt profile with the aim of facilitating access to financing for local private companies and the National State, according to Infobae.
The official decision, which also tends to keep parallel exchange rates at bay such as the dollar spot with liquidation and the dollar MEP in days of upward pressure for the exchange rate gap, implies injecting millions of dollars in demand for foreign currency sovereign bonds , which pushes up the price. A few minutes after the announcement, some of the bonds involved rose 11% in dollars. The titles cut part of those gains before the closing of that same round, to later alternate rises and falls in the following rounds.
