According to Bloomberg, the Dutch government has made quite the profit by choosing to hold onto U.S. mortgage debt acquired during the 2009 bailout of ING Groep NV.
“Timing is everything,” said Michael Canter, head of securitized assets at AllianceBernstein LP, which oversees more than $250 billion in fixed-income investments. “If they try to sell when there’s not a lot of liquidity out there, it could be a really bad thing. But if the markets are in a good place, it definitely could be absorbed without a hitch.”