(CoCos), a new debt instrument that either converts to equity or gets written down when the issuer falls low on capital, is strong. Swiss Re this month became the first insurer to issue CoCos, following the lead of Barclays, UBS and others.
At the end of January, bank assets in Cyprus totaled more than $160 billion – more than six times the country’s a gross domestic product of less than $25 billion – roughly the size of Vermont’s economy. (By comparison, U.S. bank assets of roughly $13 trillion are less than total U.S. economic output of more than $15 trillion.)