Did George Soros Lose on His Greek Bond Play?

Factual Questions
1

No details on the web-but the latest ECB proposal is that Greek bondholders take a 75% “haircut”.
Soros bought about $6 billion of Greek bonds from MF Global (Corzine had to unload them fast) for about $2 billion. Assuming that the bonds he bought are subject to the ECB ruling, his investment is (at best) worth about $1.575 billion.
So, did he lose?
Soros is a very smart guy-did he have some hedge to protect himself?

2

I don’t really follow this closely, but I believe there is some percentage of bonds that cannot be forced to submit to a collective action clause - the device Greece intends to use to bludgeon recalcitrant bond holders.

However, the ECB has exchanged it’s old Greek debt for new bonds that will NOT be subject to any CAC.

I do doubt that even Soros has that kind of clout though, so it’s an interesting question. I would assume that at the very least he’s hedged with credit default swaps (CDS’s). However a hedge by definition still leaves you vulnerable to loss on your net exposure.

There’s also the issue of counterparty risk. Will everyone who wrote CDS’s be able to pay out on them. No one seems to even know the exact nominal value of all outstanding CDS’s, so this could be . . . . mmmmm . . . . let’s call it “interesting.”

ISDA which is the body that determines when a credit event (e.g., default) has occurred, will probably rule that one has occurred if Greece invokes the CAC’s. But since the ISDA is made up of market participants who may (or may not) have a direct interest in this deal, one can’t be certain of anything.