by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street
To heck with the dreams of its bondholders.
Great-West Lifeco, a Canadian financial services conglomerate which operates subsidiaries in Canada, the US, Europe, and Asia – including Putnam Investments in the US – and with over $1 trillion in consolidated assets under management, just crapped beautifully on its bondholders.
It wasn’t illegal. Bondholders had agreed to it in the terms of the bond issue. But they’d believed Great-West would never ever dare to do it. Now it did, and it cost those bondholders dearly.