AP is reporting that Greece's international debt inspectors have discovered that the debt-ridden country still needs an extra €15bn in help - on top of a promised €130bn bailout and a €100bn debt relief from private investors, an unnamed European official said Thursday. The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, has reportedly asked the other 16 countries that also use the euro to help foot the bill for the missing €15bn, the official said, indicating that a limit has been reached of what can be achieved by Athens implementing further cuts and private investors taking losses on the bonds they hold in the country. -------------------------------------------------- FRANKFURT -(Dow Jones)- Deutsche Bank AG (DB) Chief Executive Josef Ackermann, who is also chairman of the International Institute of Finance, said he believes an agreement between creditors to reduce Greece's sovereign debt is close and that he will return to the country this weekend to continue talks on private-sector participation. "We are very close and hopefully will reach an agreement within the next weeks or days," Ackermann said on the sidelines of the bank's annual results conference. Ackermann is part of an IIF committee that leads the negotiations with the Greek government on behalf of private-sector creditors. Private bondholders are being asked to forgo 50% of their Greek bond holdings. This would help slash the ailing country's debt burden by about EUR100 billion from roughly EUR260 billion at the moment--a condition for the International Monetary Funds to pay out the next tranche to Greece to keep the country afloat. Banks, insurers and other private creditors are being asked to take a haircut--or discount--on the net present value of their Greek sovereign debt of "70% plus," Ackermann said, pointing out that private bond holders wouldn't only cut 50% of their debt claims but also swap a part of the remaining debt into longer-dated maturities at a lower interest rate. "The question is whether others contribute as well," Ackermann said, adding this is a prerequisite for Greece's debt load to fall to a sustainable level. Ackermann also said Greece shouldn't exit the euro zone after the private-sector initiative. "The euro zone should remain intact, no country should leave the euro zone," he said. Meanwhile, the bank reduced its net exposure to European periphery sovereign debt by 70% to roughly EUR3.67 billion in the past year, Chief Financial Officer Stefan Krause told analysts Thursday. It now has a net EUR448 million sovereign exposure to Greece, down from EUR1.6 billion at the end of 2010. At the same time, the bank nearly halved its net Spanish sovereign debt holdings to EUR1.3 billion and cut its Italy sovereign debt to EUR1.8 billion from more than EUR8 billion. => hätte mich auch gewundert, wenn Ackermann den "Ruhm" für den Abschluss der Verhandlungen dem Dallara überlassen hätte; last but not least hat schließlich Ackermann das sagen
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