Nachfolgend der original Kommentar von Mark Pearce in englischer Sprache:
"At the beginning of this week Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa fulfilled a long standing threat to default on what he described as illegitimate foreign debt. Specifically the country has not honoured a USD 30.6 million coupon payment on US dollar bonds maturing in 2012. The default is Ecuador´s second in a decade and seventh in its 178 year history according to the IMF. However, it is important to note that this is an issue of the country’s willingness to pay rather than ability to pay. Ecuador has almost USD 6.0 billion in foreign reserves.
Threadneedle’s emerging market bond team avoided Ecuador for a number of reasons. Firstly, it did not believe that even the extremely high yields available in the market compensated for the very high chance of default. It was also concerned that given the high degree of risk aversion in the market, high beta issuers such as Ecuador were likely to be subject to extreme volatility and limited liquidity - this has certainly been the case. Furthermore, understanding a country´s willingness (as well as ability) to meets its debt obligations forms an important part of Threadneedle’s investment process."
