Corporate Borrowing & Debt

In selecting firms to underwrite its debt offering, the insurer looked only at "diverse" businesses.

Junk-rated companies are taking advantage of low rates in preparation for a prospective "Covid Winter."

Vaccine hope fuels rally.

Restructurings become more difficult as creditors seek not to keep the company going, but to enhance their own returns.

"You entered the pandemic with dozens of U.S. high-grade companies carrying around $1 trillion of debt in aggregate, pledging to pay down debt or grow their way into lower leverage." That's going to be hard in this economy.

Record level of borrowing relative to earnings threatens to imperil the economic recovery.