Credit default swaps linked to beleaguered French IT company Atos are set to produce a hefty payout to protection holders after an auction to settle the contracts found the company’s debt was virtually worthless.
Wednesday’s CDS auction found Atos’s bonds are worth just 3% of face value, meaning CDS holders will receive a payout of 97 cents for every euro of protection they bought on the company’s debt.
The measly recovery on Atos bonds was even lower than where they had been trading in the run-up to the CDS auction. Bond dealers had initially indicated the securities were worth around 8% of face value, but the second round of the CDS auction, where physical CDS settlement requests are fulfilled, pushed the level down further.
There were about €41m of net physical sell orders in the auction's second round, which were finally filled via limit orders at three cents on the euro. That level is used to establish the payout for all other CDS holders that chose to cash settle.
The Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee, a group of banks and investors that rule on matters in the US$8.7trn CDS market, voted unanimously in late July that there had been a bankruptcy credit event on CDS referencing Atos. That followed a French court agreeing to open accelerated safeguard proceedings to allow Atos to implement a financial restructuring plan.
The restructuring plan also saw former UniCredit chief executive Jean Pierre Mustier take over as Atos chief executive. Mustier was already chairman, a role that he has retained.