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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
Artificial intelligence has caused this company’s revenues to plummet – the price of its bonds to fall. Now, it’s fighting back, by flipping the story and using AI to create a better product. Whether or not it succeeds, investors will very likely get paid anyway.