It is, of course, possible to err. You know, all that being human bit. But we would rather hope that international news agencies do better than thisthan this:
A majority of shareholders in low-cost carrier Norwegian Air Shuttle approved Monday a plan to rescue the company by swapping their equity for debt, in a move required to get state loan guarantees.
Well, no, they approved a debt for equity swap, not an equity for debt. Those who used to have bonds – and lease payments and the like – now have shares. Not the other way around, those who used to have shares now are owned debts or own bonds.
Sigh.
Quite a number of newspapersa number of newspapers seem to have printed this Associated Press piece too.
Regarding the article title: No, you cannot.
Indeed, shareholders did not turn their equity into debt. But they voted to turn their equity into less equity.
On the replication of the mistake, that’s what AP is, a mutual reporting agency where subscribing media can run the resulting stories. Without supplying their own economic savvy, if they prefer.