High Yield Report articles from July 2007

High Yield Report archives from July 2007

Secondary Market wrap: Bonds Move To The Groove Of Bad News.
July 2, 2007... Secondary trading again took a back seat to its primary counterpart, but there was still excitement as pessimistic economic indicators, ongoing housing scandals and the big money of the baseball industry got bonds moving last week. ...

PULLED DEALS: Flu Or Hiccup, High Yield Markets Are On Notice.
July 2, 2007... It was a time of reckoning for the high yield primary market last week. Participants had been reading all economic forecasts and horoscopes in an attempt to pinpoint the moment when the "any deal, any way, for any price" market would end, and...

PIPELINE: Telesat Rides Satellite Wave With $3B In Debt.
July 2, 2007... It took mankind thousands of years to reach outer space; it took the buyout and M&A market a fraction of that time. One of the latest companies to be spun out and merged into a larger company, with the help of private equity, is Telesat Canada,...

EDITOR's NOTE: Lev Lending & Subprime: Separated At Birth?
July 2, 2007... High yield investors finally told issuers to "talk to the hand" last week, and this change in sentiment comes none too soon, according to analysis by New York-based hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management. The high yield markets have...

Market Buzz: Moody's Cuts Hines Nurseries to Near Rock Bottom.
July 2, 2007... Moody's Investors Service last week downgraded the $175 million senior unsecured notes for Hines Nurseries to Caa2 from Caa1. The downgrade reflects the company's extremely weak financial metrics, its inadequate interest coverage, and the...

EURO 2nd QUARTER: Will Eurojunk Always Be A Weak Stepchild To The US market?
July 9, 2007... The market for European junk bonds has come a long way since 2002. At that time, in the wake of a collapse in media and telecom companies, there could barely be said to be a market at all. Though Deutsche Bank underwrote a remarkable nine...

U.S. 2nd QUARTER: Market Prepares For Change After Other Shoe Drops In Q2.
July 9, 2007... The days of "any deal goes"? That is so first half 2007. "[The second quarter] was like a basketball game, where all the action happens in the last few minutes," said Martin Fridson, CEO of research firm FridsonVision. The question now...

PIPELINE: It's Showtime As Canada's BCE Turns On An LBO.
July 9, 2007... With the proposed acquisition of Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE) ready to take its place as the largest telecom leveraged buyout in Canada's history, out-pricing even the May LBO of U.S. telecom company Alltel by $21 billion, we can no doubt...

EDITOR's NOTE: In Honor Of Uncle Sam, Fun (Arbitrary) Facts About Fees.
July 9, 2007... Whether you view the recent investor pushback as a much-needed adjustment in power or a sign that the days of easy money have come to an end, one thing is for sure: Banks did pretty well for themselves in the leveraged finance front for the...

Pulled ServiceMaster Bonds Worry Loan Buyers.
July 9, 2007... While ServiceMaster's $1.15 billion high yield bond issuance was pushed off the calendar by unwilling investors, the loan component of its debt package is going ahead as scheduled, though loan investors are certainly more cautious. The...

Merrill Stays No. 1 Despite Declining CDO Conditions.
July 9, 2007... Issuance in the U.S. CDO market remained strong through the second quarter of 2007, despite the sour taste in investors' mouths from the ABS vehicles' subprime exposure. Indeed, U.S. CDO issuance was up, totaling $188.33 billion through...

SECONDARY MARKET WRAP : Misery Has Company In Secondary HY Trading.
July 9, 2007... Bad economic news was mirrored by trading on the secondary high yield market last week. Company earning losses created large downturns among some bonds, and there were not many bright pockets of good news. A loud negative warble was heard...

Market Buzz: Swift To Hit Market With Caa2 Rating From Moody's.
July 9, 2007... Moody's Investors Service last week assigned a Caa2 rating to J&F Finance's new $600 million senior unsecured notes, scheduled to price July 10. The proceeds from the deal will be used in the acquisition of Swift & Co., which will be renamed...

THE PRIMARY: Deals Drop Like Flies As Investors Swat Them Away.
July 16, 2007... In searching for an onomatopoeic word for last week's high yield primary market, especially compared to weeks past, "whimper" comes to mind. The week began with $1.475 billion set to price, according to KDP Investment Advisors. However, by...

THE Secondary: Market Spooked By Subprime Cuts.
July 16, 2007... The 800-pound gorilla called "subprime" finally caught the attention of the ratings agencies last week, after spending five months or more in the credit markets' sitting room. The subsequent downgrades and related fears about the state of fixed...

PIPEline: Ceridian Clashes On Way To $3.7B Debt Package.
July 16, 2007... For the managers of Ceridian Corp., seeking to end a series of battles with an activist investor through a leveraged buyout only got them another potential battle over the LBO. Should they get their way, the Minneapolis-based outsourcing...

EDITOR'S NOTE: If The Buyout Boom Were a Movie Character...
July 16, 2007... What movie character would the current buyout boom be? I'd like to put my two cents in for "The Terminator." Let me explain. There are bombs going off all around us (in some cases smart bombs, but bombs nonetheless). High yield bond...

The Loan Market's Comeback Kid? Covenants.
July 16, 2007... Further indicating that investors are now calling the shots on the credit markets, issuers are hotfooting to add covenants to recently launched leveraged loan deals. Last week, Source Interlink, Vertrue, Van Houtte and Harlan Sprague...

Hedge Fund Quake May Remain Isolated, For Now.
July 16, 2007... The recent troubles of the Bear Stearns Asset Management Funds, the halt on redemptions at United Capital Asset Management and the shutdown of a hedge fund at Braddock Financial might only be the first of many market rumbles to clock in on the...

RMBS Downgrades Feed CDO Market Frenzy.
July 16, 2007... Standard & Poor's placed about $7.3 billion worth of subprime bonds on CreditWatch with negative implications last Tuesday, a dose of consolation to a market that originally thought the rating agency would downgrade $12 billion of bonds. ...

Barclays Snags Team of Six From Credit Suisse.
July 16, 2007... In a move to expand its West Coast leveraged finance capabilities, Barclays Capital has poached a team of six leveraged finance bankers from Credit Suisse in Los Angeles. The last of the six was hired last week. Ted Lantuono joins as managing...

THE SECONDARY: Bonds Retreat From The Economic Heat.
July 23, 2007... If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the secondary high yield market. That was the message bondholders sent last week as credit markets coped with a wave of bad economic data. More bad news for the housing market arrived Wednesday....

MARKET: Is There A Credit Storm Abrewin' For The Fall?
July 23, 2007... Consensus never comes easily, even less so when you throw in the bold - some might say "cocky" - personalities that inhabit the world of private equity and investment banking. So it's no surprise that there is no definitive response to the...

DEAL UPDATE: Credit Card Operator Charged With Going AWOL.
July 23, 2007... Following a pattern reminiscent of a child star's career, credit-card operator Alliance Data Systems' debt package seems to have slipped into a period of invisibility. The loan portion of the deal debuted in June, but as time has passed, the...

EDITOR's NOTE: Like A Bridge Over...Make That "To" Troubled Water.
July 23, 2007... OK, call me a sheep, a lemming, a member of the herd, but I can't resist. It seems everywhere I turn, someone is talking or writing about equity bridges. They are the villainous stars of the moment, criticized most recently by even the heads of...

Market Buzz: Shareholders Say No To Lear Corp. LBO.
July 23, 2007... Lear Corp.'s shareholders rejected the company's proposed LBO last week, and its merger agreement with Carl Icahn's American Real Estate Partners has been terminated. Lear will likely return its focus to its restructuring plan and its operation...

News: Tribune Not Giving Up The Ghost On Buyout.
July 23, 2007... The sound and the fury of a troubled company's fortunes will not extinguish the light in August of a promised buyout, if Tribune Co. can do anything about it. The Chicago-based media giant is scrambling to whip itself into shape for the deal....

THE SECONDARY: HY Market On Rocky III Road.
July 30, 2007... Like Rocky Balboa after the first half of "Rocky III," the high yield secondary market last week looked as if it had taken a beating by Mr. T's Clubber Lang. As the infamous boxer knew well, reversals of fortune can happen all too quickly,...

MARKETS: Investors Head For The Hills As Credit Markets Melt Down.
July 30, 2007... Now is the summer of our discontent. The high yield bond and loan markets have flopped down on the front porch, like a hound dog whose insatiable hunger led him to rob the overstuffed picnic basket and indulge to the point of indigestion. Now,...

Q&A: Columbia's Kevin Cronk: Diagnosing Disunity.(Columbia Management)(leveraged finance)(Interview)
July 30, 2007... Kevin Cronk would like to see more unity among bond buyers. Investors, he says, could learn from the current market environment and band together to improve their lot during those times, like not so long ago, when the power lies squarely on the...

HY Investors Break Free From Jail Of Tight Spreads.
July 30, 2007... A thumbs up to Bill Gross, bond portfolio manager and managing director at PIMCO, who like others on the buy side of the market is heralding the newly established unity among bondholders. Gross, who made his views known in his August 2007...

Market Buzz: Loan Boom Brings Big Refinancing Risks.
July 30, 2007... The popularity of leveraged loans among high yield investors has shifted refinancing risk, and the ability of levered companies to refinance maturing loans will be critical, according to a study released last week by Fitch Ratings. The study...