Weekly Downgrade Wrap-Up
As usual, we have a week’s worth of ratings action on the debt of LBO-backed companies from ratings agencies Standard & Poor’s Investor Services and Moody’s Investors Service. The big action this week was all the toggling going on at Realogy, Apollo Management’s ill-timed real estate mega-deal. The company underwent a distressed debt exchange of its senior toggle notes, in which Carl Icahn received $150 million of a $475 million second lien term loan for a previously held $280 million senior toggle notes due 2014. The money will be used to repay first lien credit facilities. Icahn Partners is selling the rest of its toggle notes to Apollo, which will invest the cash in the new second-lien term loan. My question: Which mega-buyouts haven’t successfully undergone a distressed debt exchange? Seems most of ‘em have succeeded in pushing their debt band-aids through and “kicked the can down the road,” as the PE pros have been saying. But have any tried and failed? Have any not even tried yet?
