What’s Your Plan Z?: What to Do When Things Go Bad
When things get really bad, escaping to the Grand Canyon is not enough. You need cash, passports, food, and all the right investments. Kim Iskyan explores Plan Z.
distressed investing
Bonds and Liar’s Poker at Salomon Brothers
Just a few years before Michael Lewis was at Salomon Brothers, eventually writing his best-seller Liar’s Poker, Porter & Co. Distressed Investing analyst Marty Fridson was in another part of the building at One New York Plaza, identifying profitable trade opportunities in the debt market. He shares details in today’s Journal.
Be Careful of Averages When It Comes to Distressed Debt
When investing in distressed debt, be very selective about which distressed bonds you buy. Buying a market basket of assets – a quick, efficient way of adding to equity holdings – is not a smart alternative with distressed debt.
Making Money Off Making Movies
The largest movie theater operator in the world, the business we feature this month struggled after the pandemic, but management improved operations and bought distressed competitors and now is on a path to pre-pandemic levels of profitability.
Distressed Debt and the Presidential Election
The media likes to guess how the outcome of the U.S. presidential election will play out in the financial markets. Here, Marty Fridson analyzes past distressed-debt data to discover if it actually matters who wins on November 5: Donald Trump or Kamala Harris.
Dig, Baby, Dig
As low-cost EV manufacturers lead the transition to electrified transport, and with lithium (the key component of electric vehicle batteries) prices down 85% in the last three years, the lithium mining industry has become one of the most beaten down in the stock market. That has created the ultimate contrarian opportunity we introduce in this issue.
Sell Alert: Frontier Communications 5.875% Bond
The Wall Street Journal has reported today that Verizon is in advanced talks to buy Frontier Communications (Nasdaq: FYBR) in an all-cash transaction. As a reminder, in a change of control Frontier must pay $1,010 for our 5.875% bonds maturing November 1, 2029. The bonds rose over $80 on the news and are currently trading
Breaking Out of the Pack
Within the junk heap of distressed debt are bonds of companies that turn themselves around and get out of distress. Those bonds re-enter the non-distressed ranks, rewarding holders with big price gains on top of the super-high yields earned along the way.
Sell Alert: iHeart Media 6.375% 5/1/2026 bond
We recommend selling the iHeart Media (Nasdaq: IHRT) 6.375% bonds because of concerns about the poor performance of the company’s radio stations. iHeart reported operating results for the quarter ending June 30 that were in line with the company’s lowered expectations. Revenue was $929 million, up 1% in the same quarter last year. Operating profit
When Personalities Trump the Numbers
When the King of Bankruptcy Wilbur Ross and Donald Trump negotiated the terms of a distressed-bond settlement, Ross’ knowledge of the casino operator’s ability to pay helped him win the deal.