Greece Wins Second Bailout as Europe Picks Aid Over Default [Bloomberg]
Debt-stricken Greece won a second bailout after European governments wrung concessions from private investors and tapped into European Central Bank profits to shield the euro area from a precedent-setting default. Finance ministers awarded 130 billion euros ($173 billion) in aid, engineered a central-bank profits transfer and coaxed investors into providing more debt relief in an exchange meant to tide Greece past a March bond repayment. Stocks fell and the euro fluctuated as investors speculated the deal won’t fix Greece’s long-term challenges. Bondholders’ response to the swap, Greece’s tolerance of more austerity and a gantlet of parliamentary approvals in northern European countries gripped by an anti-bailout mindset loom as risks to the latest salvage operation. “Everybody understood that this was the moment of truth,” Belgian Finance Minister Steven Vanackere told reporters early today after 13 1/2 hours of talks in Brussels.
Kirk Simpson co-founded an accounting software firm because he hates accounting. “I hate everything to do with accounting,” says the president and chief executive officer of Toronto-based Wave Accounting Inc. “That is generally the attitude of most small businesses.”
Brad Oltmanns and Rick Rosas are drumming their fingers.
Sam Antar is back on the O.co beat.