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Just two years after emerging from bankruptcy, the publisher of the National Enquirer is being abandoned in the bond market on concern that competition will push it back into default. American Media’s $470 million face value of bonds have lost 3 percent of their value this month, the worst performance among distressed issuers, according to BAML index data. S&P downgraded the company owned by [...]
Essar Steel Algoma, the Canadian steelmaker that had been downgraded by S&P twice since April, said it is refinancing a maturing revolver with a term loan that pays at least 575 basis points more margin over Libor. Deutsche Bank has been marketing a $350 million term loan at 750 basis points over Libor, compared with the 175 basis point margin [...]
Fortescue Metals Group, Australia’s third-biggest producer of iron ore, said today it is in talks with lenders about potential debt relief, even as it remains fully compliant with its loan covenants. Discussions are on “about potential waivers in the event that covenants are put under pressure by extended volatility in the iron ore market,” the [...]
U.S. state and county pension funds are expanding their search for yield beyond junk bonds into less liquid middle-market loans, analysts and investors said. “In a very low interest environment, 2 to 3 percent returns don’t work. It increases the hole for pension funds,” said Theodore Koenig, president and CEO at Monroe Capital, a middle-market loan investor [...]
Investor interest in homebuilder high-yield bonds, which have tightened twice as much as the overall high-yield market since the beginning of the year, is a temporary shift largely driven by a technical demand for yield, according to Bonnie Baha, the head of global developed credit at DoubleLine Capital, which oversees $40 billion. “It’s hard for me to see a sustained improvement [...]
Speculative-grade companies in Asia face the worst funding situation in more than two years, according to Moody’s. The rating company’s Asian Liquidity Stress Index rose to 21.8 percent in August from 16.8 percent in July, the highest since the first quarter of 2010, it said in a report. The gauge measures the proportion of high-yield issuers that Moody’s assesses as [...]
