The Maldives government has appointed Centerview, a US investment banking firm, to provide financial advice.
Citing two sources familiar with the situation, Reuters reported that Centerview was appointed as an"adviser on debt matters."
According to Reuters, Centerview was founded in 2006 and has recently been on a push to increase its sovereign advisory business and has been hiring widely over the past year to beef up its global operations.
In addition to New York and California, Centerview has offices in London and Paris. The firm’s clients include Disney, eBay, Paramount, DuPont and Trimble.
Maldives' public and publicly guaranteed debt stood at USD 8.2 billion in the first quarter of the year. That is 118 percent of the country’s GDP. The bulk of the debt is owed to India and China.
In June, President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu said the country’s financial situation is deteriorating and expenditures need to be cut.
"There are a number of measures to reduce government expenditure, including steps to reduce government recurrent expenditure. These include reducing the number of political posts and reducing or not having ceremonies on various occasions," he said.
However, the situation continued to deteriorate as the government continued to push back fiscal reforms. The country’s usable foreign exchange reserves were completely depleted in August and two credit rating agencies, Fitch and Moody's, downgraded Maldives' credit rating.
The government rolled over a USD 50 million loan owed to India in September. Since then, President Muizzu has signed a currency swap agreement worth USD 400 million and INR 3 billion during his visit to India last week.
