High Yield Report articles from May 2007

High Yield Report archives from May 2007

Market Wrap: Market Has Airline Nausea, Energy Fever.
May 7, 2007... Airline bonds plummeted from the sky last week as if shot down by the Red Baron, while investors showed enthusiasm for new energy-related bonds that priced on the high yield primary market. Northwest Airlines took an exceptionally hard...

PIPELINE: Shareholder Suit Not Likely To Tarnish Claire's $2.6B Debt.
May 7, 2007... Claire's Stores may sell costume jewelry, but it could have debt buyers seeing gold. The Pembroke Pines, Fla.-based jewelry retailer agreed on March 20 to be acquired by private equity firm Apollo Management in a $3.1 billion buyout. The buyout...

Company News: Solutia Wins, Bondholders Lose Case And Money.
May 7, 2007... A court ruling last week in a case brought by bondholders against Solutia gave a victory to the St. Louis-based company and left noteholders hurting as their bonds took a steep tumble. The resolution of the suit paves the way for the company to...

EDITOR's NOTE: A Nudge Here, A Shove There, And ... Pushback.
May 7, 2007... Despite the high yield loan and bond markets being skewed toward sellers, there have been several cases recently of feisty investors who are not lying down for any old deal but, indeed, giving issuers a firm push back. This week, reporter...

Market Buzz: GoldenTree Adds to European Leveraged Finance.
May 7, 2007... Vijay Rajguru joined GoldenTree Asset Management as a partner last week following increased activity and investor interest in the European leveraged finance arena. Rajguru will be based in London and will work closely with David Allen, the...

-ST_BY-.
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NEWS: GateHouse's Tack-On Term Loan Ruffles Existing Lenders.(acquiring papers from Copley Press Inc. and Gannett Company Inc.)
May 7, 2007... One deal currently in the market that is not seeing much fanfare from investors is an add-on term loan for Fairport, N.Y.-based local print and online media publisher GateHouse Media. The company has seen pushback since Wachovia started...

FEATURE: Covenant-Lite Hits Europe, But Will It Stick?
May 7, 2007... The mid-March launch of a E975 million refinancing for VNU World Directories set the ball rolling for what European loan market players expect to be a growing trend in Europe: That of the covenant-lite loan. The feature has been part of the...

Gainers & Losers: Intertape/Solutia.
May 7, 2007... Following five straight quarters of losses, Intertape Polymer U.S. made the gainers list last week, after it agreed to be acquired by U.S. buyout firm Littlejohn & Co. for roughly $195 million in cash. Littlejohn offered $4.76 a share and will...

Market Wrap: Market Abides With A Pullback And Drive-Bys.
May 14, 2007... High yield bond investors gingerly traded assets last week in the wake of company earnings reports and put their money into drive-by financings. As refinancings dominated the primary market, investors were also intrigued by a $550 million deal...

PIPELINE: Harman May Drive Up Investor Confidence In Auto Debt.
May 14, 2007... In an industry burdened by pricing pressures from original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and a decline in North American automotive production volumes, profitable auto parts suppliers are few and far between. However, Washington, D.C.-based...

TRENDS: More Debt Buyers Get Side Order Of Equity.
May 14, 2007... In what may be a new twist on the relationship between LBO firms and the debt investors that make their work possible, the investors are now more likely to get the opportunity to co-invest in the equity portion of an LBO deal. The trend is on...

NEWS: Loans Could Throw Monkey Wrench Into Recovery.
May 14, 2007... The predominance of loans in the speculative-grade market may lead to their undoing, says a new study released last week by Fitch Ratings. The study comes as the global speculative-grade default rate is expected to more than double within the...

Market Buzz: Dresdner Names New Head of Credit Trading.(Standard & Poor's Corp. ratings of Spansion Technology and Vitamin Shoppe Industries)(Neil Walker joins Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein)
May 14, 2007... Dresdner Kleinwort announced last week that it has appointed Neil Walker as its new head of credit trading. In his new role, Walker's will be responsible for structured credit products, cash CDOs, ABS and exotics as well as the credit flow...

Gainers & Losers: Continental/Toys "R" Us.
May 14, 2007... Last week was a good week for the airline sector as many of the major carriers, including Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines and Northwest Airline Corp. , found spots at the top of the gainers list. While largely a result of lower oil...

SECONDARY WRAP: Bonds Move on Housing/LBO News.
May 21, 2007... Bonds on the high yield market last week were both battered by the storm of the slumping housing market and uplifted by big LBO news coming from the auto sector. "As it becomes clearer that the housing market is not stabilizing, there are...

Pipeline: Catalina Shopping The Markets For $1.25B Debt Package.
May 21, 2007... Knowing that you purchased bread and butter at your local supermarket is Catalina Marketing's bread and butter. Catalina often generates the coupons that cash registers print out for customers at the supermarket. Now an LBO has Catalina...

TRENDS: Rash Of Drive-Bys Hits High Yield Market.
May 21, 2007... The origination of the "drive-by" shooting is credited to the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 and gained popularity among warring organized crime factions during the Prohibition era. Named for the practice that involves an attacker shooting at an...

NEWS: Heated Lending May Bring Debt To A Boil In The Restaurant Sector.
May 21, 2007... The leveraged finance markets have seen increased issuance from the restaurant sector. Recent debt packages include Melville, N.Y.-based pizza restaurant chain Sbarro's buyout by private equity firm MidOcean Partners, Minn.-based Buffets'...

NEWS: LBOs And M&A Keep Primary HY Busy.
May 21, 2007... The high yield market got a jolt last week as the most celebrated buyout of the week may need an extra large haul of debt before the year is out. And with a spate of drive-bys and other large issuances, the high yield primary market kept busy....

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Structure Du Jour, Or Is Covenant Lite Here To Stay?(loans)
May 21, 2007... Despite how it vexes investors, the market's tilt toward the sell side keeps the "covenant lite" deals coming, increasing the concern of those who worry about such things and providing fodder for financial publications, conferences and client...

Market Buzz: Dreman Boosts Onefater To Chief Executive.(Dreman Value Management L.P.'s Boris Onefater)(Pope and Talbot Inc. ratings)(Chemtura Corp.)
May 21, 2007... Dreman Value Management announced it named Boris Onefater as its new chief executive. Onefater joined the asset management company last year as chief financial and chief operating officer. Before joining Dreman, Onefater was a partner with...

PIPELINE: LBO To Throw New Alltel Debt To Junk Hounds.
May 28, 2007... Little Rock, Ark.-based regional wireless operator Alltel Corp. has been connecting the public since its inception under the name Allied Telephone in 1943. But with its agreement to be bought out by TPG Capital Partners and GS Capital Partners,...

SECONDARY WRAP: Airlines Soar, But Health Care Is Poor.
May 28, 2007... The secondary market saw evidence of the airline industry's takeoff from the long, sad runway of bankruptcy, as well as more fallout from bad quarterly earnings and the sorry state of the U.S. health-care system. Among the bonds that...

Trends: Banks' Equity Bridges May Be More Like Tightropes.
May 28, 2007... In the 1957 David Lean film The Bridge on the River Kwai, allied prisoners of war worked to build a railroad bridge in Japanese-occupied Burma, only to realize that their short-term efforts to be productive have harmed their long-term effort to...

EDITOR'S NOTE: By Coddling Shareholders, Companies Drive Down Credit Quality.
May 28, 2007... The academic rankings of American students - especially in math and science - have been declining for a couple of decades now. So too, have the credit ratings of American companies. The backslide of credit quality is nothing new, but the...

Market Buzz: General Motors To Issue $1.1B In Convertible Debt.
May 28, 2007... General Motors Corp. announced last week that it plans to offer $1.1 billion of convertible debt securities, and it received a commitment for a $4.1 billion revolver. Fitch Ratings downgraded the company's senior unsecured debt rating to B-...

News: Primary Investors Like Cheap Bling And Pricey Oil.
May 28, 2007... Last week's primary high yield market featured investor enthusiasm for large U.S. niche retail, the power of petroleum and the real estate bonanza in Las Vegas. Claire's Stores priced $935 million in high yield bonds last Tuesday, which...