Sovereign haircuts / SRB
Serbia and Montenegro
6 concluded restructurings, between 1895 and 2004. The earliest default they settle began in 1895. The worst cost creditors 70.9% of the present value of their claim, in 2004. The longest gap between a default and its settlement was 35 years. The file records these episodes under 2 country names (Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro); the page is titled with the most recent.
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.
| Default | Settled | Years to settle | Present-value haircut | Face-value reduction | Debt treated (2020 $) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1895 | 1895 | 0 | 17.3% | 0.0% | $1.63B | Meyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022) |
| 1932 | 1967 | 35 | 0.0% | 73.1% | $1.10B | Meyer, Reinhart and Trebesch (2022) |
| 1983 | 1984 | 1 | -1.3% | 0.0% | $4.78B | Cruces and Trebesch (2013) |
| 1983 | 1985 | 2 | 14.5% | 0.0% | $7.47B | Cruces and Trebesch (2013) |
| 1983 | 1988 | 5 | 19.7% | 0.0% | $13.23B | Cruces and Trebesch (2013) |
| 1992 | 2004 | 12 | 70.9% | 59.3% | $3.60B | Cruces 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
| Spell | From | To | Years | Restructurings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SRB_1895-1895 | 1895 | 1895 | 1 | 1 |
| SRB_1932-1967 | 1932 | 1967 | 36 | 1 |
| SRB_1983-1988 | 1983 | 1988 | 6 | 3 |
| SRB_1992-2004 | 1992 | 2004 | 13 | 1 |
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 5 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. 4 of them are filed in that file under iso3 YUG rather than SRB, and are shown here because that code has no page of its own.
| Deal | Date | Present value | Market | Face value | Exit yield | Structure | Data quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yugoslavia | 1983-09-01 | 6.5% | 6.5% | 0.0% | 14.7% | - | 2 / 5 |
| Yugoslavia | 1984-05-01 | -7.5% | -7.5% | 0.0% | 14.7% | - | 2 / 5 |
| Yugoslavia | 1985-12-01 | 14.5% | 18.5% | 0.0% | 14.5% | - | 3 / 5 |
| Yugoslavia | 1988-09-01 | 19.7% | 22.1% | 0.0% | 14.3% | - | 2 / 5 |
| Serbia and Montenegro | 2004-07-01 | 70.9% | 73.2% | 59.3% | 9.7% | - | 3 / 5 |
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
$240.0M 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 class | In default, 2024 |
|---|---|
| Domestic (fiscal) arrears | $240.0M |
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
Restructurings with Chinese creditors
2 restructurings with Chinese creditors are recorded here. No haircut is attached to any of them, so they cannot be placed on the scale above; the file records only whether face value or the interest rate was cut.
| Year | Type | Creditor | Terms |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Face Value Reduction | Sinochem | In 2003, Sinochem International and Naftna Industrija Srbije (both SOEs) signed a debt relief agreement. The agreement cancelled 70 mn USD in outstanding payment obligations and rescheduled the remaining 196 mn USD in debt to be repayable in 16 semi-annual installments of approximately $14.2 million over an eight year period from June 30, 2004 to December 31, 2011. The interest rate on these outstanding obligations were reduced from 4.4% to LIBOR plus a 0.7% margin. |
| 2009 | Face Value Reduction | Multiple | China cancels and reschedules several outstanding debts of Serbia, incl. claims of SAFE on the National Bank of Serbia, claims by China Ex-Im Bank on state-owned Serbian banks (with sovereign guarantees) and claims by China Ex-Im Bank on the central government. All of these debts date back to 1999, when Chinese entities provided large financial support to Serbia. |
Source: Horn, Reinhart & Trebesch, China's overseas lending and debt restructurings Methodology