Brawls Erupt in U.S. Debt Markets After Borrowers Get Desperate
- Credit-market feuds getting uglier, dirtier and more vicious
- Weak covenants open door to asset transfers, other moves
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A massive wave of corporate distress is pitting beleaguered companies against their lenders in brawls that are shaping up to be nastier than ever before.
Desperate firms and their private equity owners are seeking to take advantage of years of weakening creditor protections to help cut obligations and raise cash after the coronavirus outbreak brought businesses to a standstill. Be it via allowances written into borrowing documents when times were good or simply loopholes in deal terms, they’re siphoning collateral and transferring assets while pushing deeply discounted debt swaps onto investors, who risk seeing the value of their bonds and loans plunge if they don’t go along.