Meet the Street: Assessing the Debt Landscape

Among the things we hopefully bid adieu to last year was the record level of telecom credit defaults. And what a year it was. The default rate for high-yield telecom debt was one in four issues, while the previous high was one in 10 back in 1991 during the last recession.

Glenn Reynolds, Debt Analyst, CreditSights

Recent Meet the Streets

Evergreen's, Clark Stamper

J.P. Morgan's, Thomas Van Leuven

Credit Suisse First Boston's, Wendy Beale Needham

University of San Francisco's, Oren Harari

Mellon Private Wealth Management's, H. Vernon Winters

INT Media Group's , Alan Meckler

The record number of defaults has meant it's been a busy time for Glenn Reynolds, a debt watchdog for CreditSights, an independent New York-based research shop. Reynolds has been keeping track of bankruptcies, bond buybacks -- where companies feel their limited cash reserves are best used to repurchase their junk bonds -- and convertible debt deals, in which companies desperate for cash sell bonds that generally pay a high interest rate and also can be converted into shares. ...