FinObservatory

Sovereign haircuts / RUS

Russia

4 concluded restructurings, between 1917 and 2000. The earliest default they settle began in 1917. The worst cost creditors 100.0% of the present value of their claim, in 1917. The longest gap between a default and its settlement was 6 years.

4
Restructurings
51.5%
Median present-value haircut
100.0%
Worst present-value haircut
2 of 4
Cut face value by zero
$78.59B
Debt treated (2020 $)

Every restructuring

Two measures of the same deals, never combined. The present-value haircut discounts what creditors got against what they were owed; the face-value reduction counts only principal written off.

0204060801001917199720002000Year the restructuring concluded
Present-value haircutFace-value reduction
DefaultSettledYears to settlePresent-value haircutFace-value reductionDebt treated (2020 $)Source
19171917repudiated0100.0%100.0%$28.44BMeyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022)
1991199760.0%0.0%$46.37BCruces and Trebesch (2013)
19982000251.5%34.3%$1.89BCruces and Trebesch (2013)
19992000151.5%0.0%$1.89BCruces and Trebesch (2013)

Source: Meyer, Reinhart & Trebesch (2022), Sovereign Bonds since Waterloo | Cruces & Trebesch (2013), Sovereign Defaults: The Price of Haircuts | Asonuma & Trebesch (2016) Debt treated is the amount restructured, deflated to constant 2020 US dollars in the source file. A negative haircut means the new instruments were worth more than the old claim. Methodology

Default spells

SpellFromToYearsRestructurings
RUS_1917-19171917191711
RUS_1991-200019912000103

Source: Meyer, Reinhart & Trebesch (2022), Sovereign Bonds since Waterloo | Cruces & Trebesch (2013), Sovereign Defaults: The Price of Haircuts | Asonuma & Trebesch (2016) Duration counts both endpoints. The spells table also carries a cumulative-haircut column; it is not published here because it does not reconcile with the per-episode haircuts, see the methodology. Methodology

The Cruces-Trebesch record: a third measure and the discount rate

The Cruces-Trebesch file carries 4 restructurings here, and adds the market haircut (the new instruments against the face value of the old claim, undiscounted) and the exit yield used to do the discounting. The deal label is the file’s own and is finer than the country: it names the instrument class the deal covered. The two files were assembled separately, so a deal here need not line up one-to-one with a row above.

DealDatePresent valueMarketFace valueExit yieldStructureData quality
Russian Federation1997-12-0126.2%26.2%0.0%10.8%-4 / 5
Russia (GKOs, non-resid.)1999-05-0146.0%43.1%21.0%SZ ratebond exchange5 / 5
Russia (MinFin3)2000-02-0151.5%50.0%0.0%14.8%bond exchange5 / 5
Russia (PRINs & IANs)2000-08-0150.8%62.4%36.4%12.5%bond exchange5 / 5
The two files disagree here. For 1997, the long-run file records a present-value haircut of 0.0% and the Cruces-Trebesch file records 26.2%. Both are shown above. They are not averaged, and no third number is constructed from them.

Source: Cruces & Trebesch, haircut dataset (2014 update) Data quality is the file's own 1-to-5 index of how well the deal terms are documented. Methodology

Debt still in default

$49.85B across 1 creditor class in 2024. A haircut can only be measured once a restructuring concludes, so any of this that is still being negotiated is by construction absent from the tables above.

Creditor classIn default, 2024
Foreign-currency bonds$49.85B

Source: Bank of Canada-Bank of England Sovereign Default Database (CRAG) Bank of Canada terms (attribution). Includes domestic arrears, so it is not comparable with the debt-treated column above. Methodology

Methodology, the measures, and what this data cannot tell you