Ratings agency, Standard & Poor, has released its latest estimate on the performance of global debt issuers. Based on its rating system, the agency has stated that those issuers will a B- or lower with a negative ratings outlook or being monitored for a downgrade has been on the increase.
The figures reached a record high, after increasing for the last 14 months. This translates into approximately 300 issuers, with a total rated debt of $485.75 billion.
The most vulnerable industries in these figures were the media-and-entertainment, retail-and-restaurants, and the building-materials segments. Their B- rating places these areas on speculative ground-and uncertainty abounds.
As 2009 has progressed, the numbers of corporate level defaults have increased exponentially. As of April 22, the number of issuers has risen to 92 since the beginning of the year; the debt amount affected by defaults is worth $243.95 billion. Last year’s figures included 126 defaults with a total debt of $433 billion.
S&P also reported its expectation that the U.S. corporate speculative-grade default rate will continue to rise to an all-time high of 14.3% by March 2010. This estimate comes even as the number of defaults continues to rise despite recent signs that the economy is on the rebound. The agency has projected that the U.S. economy will level out in the third quarter of 2009, even while the rate of defaults will continue to be abundant past that point.
If the project rate does emerge next year, it would mark a record rate increase that surpass any other observed in prior default rate cycles since the S&P started recording in 1981. The most recent record for the U.S. corporate speculative level default rate of 12.54% occurred in 18 years ago in July of 1991.
While there are no guarantees that the figures will hold, such estimates, offered by the S&P, hold enough weight to serious influence the direction of the rating trends.
Tags: Standard & Poor, corporate debt
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