[itsoktocry]

>For instance, BlackRock bought credit default swaps in a Spanish company, and then paid that company to default on its debt, thus making a profit at the expense of the counter party.

Do you have a source for this? I feel like some details are lacking.

[DANK_YACHT]

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-11-17/blacks...

The tldr is that they bought credit default swaps for debt owed by Codere SA, and then offered the company financial assistance to restructure with the requirement that they pay their existing debt late to trigger a default.

[gvhst]

That's BlackStone, not BlackRock. They are totally different entities.

[fjkdlsjflkds]

Not to be confused with BlackBoulder...

[mandevil]

Not sure about the specific instance, but Matt Levine's invaluable Money Stuff spent a lot of time discussing so-called "Manufactured Default": https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-04-10/hovnan... is an instance of how complicated these can get.

He discusses the morality of this particular issue, as part of a discussion on a proposal for the SEC to regulate it, here: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-16/the-se...

Basically, Levine's argument is that as a result of these sorts of shenanigans, one giant investment fund (in this case, I guess, Black Rock, though again I don't know about this specific instance) gave money to an actual company that was employing people and doing something in the real world and that was in some kind of financial trouble. And it did that because it wanted to make even more money from some hedge fund somewhere, sure, but look at who was harmed (a hedge fund that was in the business of buying and selling Credit Default Swaps) and who benefited (a real company with a whole bunch of employees who would otherwise be laid off, and another hedge fund that was in the business of buying and selling Credit Default Swaps) and I'm not sure that the whole thing is that bad?