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Which Bondholders Benefit From The Paulson Plan

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by Felix Salmon
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Dec 04 2007 12:00am EDT

Which Bondholders Benefit From the Paulson Plan?

Last week, when the Sheila Bair subprime-modification plan became the Hank Paulson subprime-modification plan, I tentatively suggested that junior bondholders might be winners, while senior bondholders could lose out:

In reality, it's almost certain that some bondholders would benefit from this scheme, while others would lose out. My intuition is that the plan would help out junior bondholders at the expense of senior bondholders, although it probably differs on a case-by-case basis.

Steve Waldman disagrees. He has a long post explaining his reasoning, but here's his conclusion:

The proposal effectively represents a transfer of wealth from junior to senior trancheholders.

Is he right? Caroline Baum doesn't think so. She quotes Josh Rosner approvingly:

The way these CDO structures are set up, defaults in underlying mortgages trip certain triggers that serve to protect senior noteholders. If the plan inhibits defaults, "the cash flows that should be reserved for the AAA holders will end up going to the residual owners," Rosner said.

So according to Waldman, the Pauslon plan moves money from junior to senior trancheholders, while according to Rosner the flow is in the opposite direction. Maybe someone at Treasury could step in and clear this issue up once and for all?

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