Per una volta, un post "di bottega" . IL Wall Street Journal di oggi espone pubblico uno dei punti dolenti di questi mesi nel mercato dei cosiddetti "high-yield", ossia i prestiti a societa' non in possesso di un rating "investment grade": invece che bond, liberamente trasferibili ( e quindi liquidabili in caso di problemi),adesso la moda e' quella di sottoscrivere quote di prestiti: maggiori garanzie ed accesso ad informazioni riservate, in cambio di una molto minore liquidita' e trasparenza del mercato, oltre che di remunerazione al rischio minore.
Vedremo fino a dove si potra' arrivare. Nel frattempo, tuttavia, il lato positivo e' che almeno la liquidita' sul mercato dei "laons" va migliorando...
It isn't easy holding corporate bonds.
For months, bond investors have lamented the swing by companies to shareholder-friendly practices such as stock dividends, which often lead to credit-rating downgrades and take money away from such bond-friendly pursuits as debt repayment.
At the same time, the syndicated-loan market -- debt that carries recovery claims senior to bonds -- has exploded. In some cases, that means reduced recovery prospects for bondholders because holders of bank debt have the first claim on collateral.
Bondholders are forced now to become more vigilant, keeping one eye trained on the bank debt on the top of a company's capital structure and the other on stockholders, who are growing increasingly insistent on moves that benefit shareholders.
"If they can find ways to go above us, they are," said Eric Misenheimer, who manages $500 million in high-yield assets as head of the high-yield group at J. & W. Seligman & Co. in New York, referring to issuers' increasing reliance on the bank-debt market.
Companies like Calpine Corp., the power company that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection last month, made a habit of stacking more debt on top of existing bonds, he said.
And a slew of giant leveraged buyouts of late, including the recent NRG Energy Inc. deal, involve billions of dollars in bank debt that has first dibs on collateral. That is a shift from the LBOs of yore, which were more heavily reliant on junk bonds.
The growth of the loan market "should raise alarm bells for bond investors," said Steven Kerr, a director in Standard & Poor's bank-loan and recoveries group. "Additional senior secured debt almost certainly reduces recovery opportunities for bond investors."
The robustness of the loan market -- especially in leveraged loans of riskier companies -- has profound implications for credit markets. Demand for the loans has soared. Last year, leveraged loan issuance topped the $500 billion mark, dwarfing the junk-bond market's $95 billion in new deals.
Investors like loans' floating interest rates, which reset periodically. They also appreciate loans' senior spot in a company's capital structure. That factor has helped the loan market hold steady when bond markets sold off following such events as the downgrades of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. to speculative grade last year.
The demand in that market means that issuers and their bankers can practically name their terms, unlike in the high-yield bond market where investors are pickier. Loan investors are more willing to accept higher debt levels and other risky measures because they have a greater chance to recover their investment in the case of default and because, unlike bondholders, holders of bank debt are privy to periodic financial status updates from an issuer.
"Even participants who have trepidation about the increasing leverage can't really speak up because if they do, they won't get a good allocation in the deal," said one Wall Street banker.
The growing loan market brings with it opportunities for bond investors who have the flexibility to expand into that market. Loans are becoming increasingly liquid and available for intraday trade, a factor that kept some investors from that market in the past. As the market matures, bond investors "have a tremendous opportunity" to diversify outside of traditional fixed-rate subordinated debt, said Lorraine Spurge, a managing director at Post Advisory Group LLC in Los Angeles, which has $8 billion in assets under management.
Years of historically low default rates and a benign credit environment may have led some investors to become less vigilant about their recovery prospects. That factor will matter when companies begin to default more frequently, a situation that is predicted to occur over the next couple of years. As a bondholder, "you have to make sure the covenants protect you from [other debt] securing all of the assets above you," said Ms. Spurge.
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