Greece is facing downgrade to 'selective default': S&P

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Standard & Poor's will likely downgrade Greece's ratings to "selective default" when the country concludes its debt restructuring, but that will not necessarily destroy the credibility of the European Union, an official with the ratings agency said on Tuesday.

"It's not a given that Greece's default would have a domino effect in the euro zone," John Chambers, the chairman of S&P's sovereign rating committee, said in an event organized by Blooomberg Link.

Greece was clinging on Tuesday to hope of a last-minute bond swap deal to avoid a messy default after euro zone officials sent talks back to square one by rejecting a final offer from the country's private bondholders.

Athens is desperate for a deal within days to ensure funds from a 130 billion euro rescue plan drawn up by European partners and the International Monetary Fund arrive before 14.5 billion euros bond redemptions fall due in March.

After weeks of haggling with creditors in Athens, euro zone finance ministers in Brussels on Monday dealt a sharp setback to those hopes by rejecting creditors' demand for a 4 percent coupon, or interest rate, on new, longer-dated bonds in exchange for existing debt.

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