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zerohedge, Feb 04, 2015 — http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-04/meet-man-behind-scenes-pro-market-socialist-banker-who-will-shape-europes-financial-

Meet The Man Behind The Scenes: The „Pro-Market Socialist“ Banker
Who Will Shape „Europe’s Financial Future“

… The real brains behind the latest Greek attempt at tearing away the hated „oppressive“ shackles of debt (which nobody had a problem incurring originally when everything was going smoothly, but that’s a topic for another day) is a banker who sits 3000 kilometers away, on Paris‘ Boulevard Hausmann, and who is a self-described „pro-market socialist“, and fan of The Clash.

Meet Lazard’s Matthieu Pigasse, the banker, whose actions in the next few days, as the WSJ puts it (1), will shape „Europe’s financial future.“

The 46-year-old financier is head of the government advisory arm at Lazard , the international investment bank hired in recent days by both Greece and Ukraine to help renegotiate their debts, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Pigasse “has been involved in some of the most important sovereign debt restructurings in the last decade,” said Deborah Zandstra, a sovereign debt partner at lawyers Clifford Chance LLP. “His appointment by the new Greek administration is a positive step.” Both assignments are key to Europe’s political and economic health. …
In Greece, new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has promised to slash the country’s heavy debt burden. But other eurozone leaders have declared that any reduction in the face value of Greek debt would be unacceptable and the Greek finance minister is now proposing to swap debt for new growth-linked bonds… .
And while third world familiarity will certainly come in useful, the fees collected are quite first world:
Advising governments is a relatively small part of Lazard’s business, with fees making up just a small fraction of total revenue. But government mandates are particularly prestigious and the work can be lucrative. In March 2012, Greece said it paid Lazard €25 million ($28.5 million) for its advice over the previous two years. The sovereign advisory arm, run out of the Paris office, has increased head count by 50% to 30 over the past three years. …

While Pigasse’s academic background is nothing special, it is notable that one of his co-workers is none other than disgraced former IMF head and one time French presidential hopeful DSK:
Mr. Pigasse graduated from France’s ENA, a prestigious administrative school that has educated many of the country’s top civil servants. In the late 1990s, he worked in the French finance ministry under its then chief, Dominique Strauss-Kahn . He joined Lazard in 2002 and earned a reputation as a strong negotiator after working on a string of large deals, including the $38 billion merger between utilities giants Suez SA and Gaz de France SA .
Curiously, in this specific assignment instead of being aligned monetarily with his client, Pigasse will share ideological ties: you see the banker is a devout socialst.
The financier, who through Lazard declined to comment, is also part-owner of France’s left-leaning Le Monde newspaper and a self-confessed socialist. In an interview with French television that aired last week before Lazard was appointed as an adviser to Greece, Mr. Pigasse said it was “absolutely necessary” that the Greek debt held by public institutions be halved, which would represent a cut of about €100 billion. …

(1) THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, Feb 04, 2015
The Lazard Banker Shaping Greece’s and Ukraine’s Financial Fate
Matthieu Pigasse’s Department has Been Hired to Renegotiate the Countries’ Debt
By DAVID WIGHTON
URL: http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lazard-banker-shaping-greece-and-ukraines-financial-fate-1423067028

Full text attached (pdf-file, 3p) GREECE-The-Man-Behind-The-Scenes150205

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Martin Zeis
globalcrisis/globalchange News
martin.zeis@gmxpro.net