US companies have talked about cutting their debt loads for years. The Federal Reserve may now be ensuring it actually happens.
The Fed has pushed borrowing costs for blue-chip companies to the highest levels since the financial crisis, to help tame the worst inflation in four decades. A blue-chip company refinancing a bond in the corporate market now would have to pay an average of about 1.5 percentage points more in interest, compared with the average coupon for existing debt, according to Bloomberg index data.
