Primus Guaranty, Ltd. (NYSE:PRS) announced that its subsidiary, Primus
Financial Products, LLC ("Primus Financial”), has completed a portfolio
repositioning transaction with a significant counterparty. In the
transaction, Primus Financial terminated $300 million notional principal
of three bespoke tranche transactions and paid the counterparty a
termination fee of $35 million, a significant discount to the market
value of the these transactions.
Since July 31, 2009, Primus Financial has completed four repositioning
transactions, resulting in the termination of approximately $2.8 billion
of single-name credit swaps and tranche transactions. In aggregate,
Primus Financial has paid $66.5 million to terminate or amend credit
swaps. Primus Financial has also contributed $126 million of capital to
two subsidiaries in connection with the portfolio repositioning
transactions, which has enabled Primus Financial to cap its exposure to
an additional $2.9 billion of credit swaps. The objective of these
portfolio repositioning transactions is to de-risk components of Primus
Financial’s credit swap portfolio by actively managing certain industry
concentrations and higher risk tranches with the objective of narrowing
the range of possible negative outcomes and preserve the portfolio’s
long-term value.
No assurance can be given that these portfolio repositioning
transactions, in aggregate, will achieve the desired risk reductions in
Primus Financial’s portfolio.
About Primus Guaranty
Primus Guaranty, Ltd. is a Bermuda company with operations in New York,
Boston and London. Through its subsidiaries, the company is a leading
manager of corporate credit assets and provider of credit protection.
Primus manages assets in structured credit funds and operating
companies, across a range of asset classes – including investment grade,
high yield and leveraged loans – using both cash and synthetic
instruments.
Safe Harbor Statement
Some of the statements included in this press release and other
statements Primus Guaranty may make, particularly those anticipating
future financial performance, business prospects, growth and operating
strategies, market performance, valuations and similar matters, are
forward-looking statements that involve a number of assumptions, risks
and uncertainties, which change over time. For those statements, Primus
Guaranty claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking
statements contained in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform
Act of 1995. Any such statements speak only as of the date they are
made, and Primus Guaranty assumes no duty to, and does not undertake to,
update any forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ
materially from those anticipated in forward-looking statements, and
future results could differ materially from historical performance. For
a discussion of the factors that could affect the company's actual
results please refer to the risk factors identified from time to time in
the company's SEC reports, including, but not limited to, Primus
Guaranty's Annual Report on Form 10-K, as filed with the U.S. Securities
and Exchange Commission.