The refinancing burden of unrated European leveraged buyouts (LBOs) remains challenging, says Moody’s investors Service in a new Special Comment published today showing that 254 companies face EUR 133 billion in LBO-related debt maturing through 2015. At least a quarter of these companies could default with the figure doubling if external factors close the high-yield market for extended periods.

The new report, entitled “Unrated European LBOs Remain Under Pressure from Refinancing Burden,” is now available on www.moodys.com. Moody’s subscribers can access this report via the link provided at the end of this press release.

“Over half the debt maturing through 2015 is concentrated in 36 companies, each of which has over €1 billion of debt, says Chetan Modi, Head of Moody’s European leveraged finance and author of the report. “While this debt is broadly dispersed across industries, there is a concentration of debt to be refinanced in 2014.”

The results of Moody’s study are consistent with the rating agency’s previous analyses, but these companies are now one year closer to the 2014-15 refinancing peak. This refinancing peak remains worrisome, given the weak macroeconomic environment and the generally low credit quality of this debt.

In the report, Moody’s notes that the key factors determining the type of refinancing method companies choose will be the amount of debt and its credit quality. Many larger companies will seek to refinance with high-yield bonds, however they will need to be sufficiently creditworthy to achieve this.

The openness of both European and US high-yield markets will largely determine how this refinancing burden is navigated. Market access will remain in “windows”, and Moody’s expects new-issuer pricing to remain expensive.
Moody’s anticipates that more companies will attempt to amend-and-extend (A&E) loans in 2012. Lending options for European collateralised loan obligations (CLOs), including for A&Es, will become increasingly constrained, particularly from 2013, as their reinvestment periods end. This restriction will precipitate more fundamental debt restructurings for weaker credits.

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Consumers will rejoice as Leap’s Cricket Service will begin on iPhone starting in late June.

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Consumer still love $TGT for its cheap prices and selections. 5% was on the high end of expectations and the CEO said they expect to power through a tough economy.

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This could be a potentially big problem for $JPM. While at the moment losses could only be $100s of millions it is unclear what the story is and makes the recent sale of $25 billion all the more suspect.

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“Under the deal with Christie, Seattle-based Amazon will start collecting sales tax as of July 1, 2013, on orders placed by New Jersey residents through its website, and will seek state financial help if it chooses to open a warehouse in the state, Lesniak said.”

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“Google+, with 100 million active users, still has a long way to go before being anywhere near social network rival Facebook’s nearly one-billion subscribers. But it has been working hard to leverage its substantial audiences in other areas to do just that. And today saw the latest advance in that area, with the double news that it is launching Google+ Local, and sunsetting Google Places, its older, less social version of local listings and local search.”

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Can’t wait….

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Rather than fight for innocence and proving ethical behavior $WFC would rather pay $432 million and move on.

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Some analyst expect $FB to drop an additional 20% to be trading in line with the overall sector. Let’s hope for seriously damaged investor confidence that it will not be the case.

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I say regulation and full transparency is needed. Those institutions that play in the market above and beyond the basic hedge should have a separate business division tht can potentially win big or lose big without hurting the institution or the tax payers.

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In a time of debt crisis you would think some discretion would be used…no ?

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Yeah, every major technology corporation should build a fucking smart phone. They won’t engross each other’s market share at all…

Facebook (FB -9.62%) plans to release its own smartphone next year, according to New York Times tech writer Nick Bilton, who cites several Facebook employees and allies.

This wouldn’t be the newly public social network’s first stab at building its own smartphone, or even its second, and not everyone thinks it’s a good idea.

“Hardware is an extraordinarily difficult, low-margin, commodity business” that “Facebook knows absolutely nothing about,” says Henry Blodget at Business Insider. But chief executive Mark Zuckerberg seems determined, reportedly hiring more than half a dozen former Apple (AAPL +1.77%) engineers who worked on the iPhone.

Here, five reasons Facebook would actually be wise to build its own handset:

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A General Motors Co. (GM) lawyer demanded the widow of a car-crash victim drop a plan to seek punitive damages from the auto maker, even though the company’s government-brokered overhaul doesn’t bar plaintiffs from going after such legal penalties.

The GM lawyer in a March 3 email told a lawyer representing the widow of a man killed in a GM-made U-Haul truck that GM couldn’t be sued for punitive damages in the case. Other lawyers say that assertion stretches beyond what they believe is GM’s legal exposure in product-liability cases. Even so, after receiving the email, the widow’s lawyer abandoned plans to make a claim for punitive damages against GM.

Punitive damages are intended to punish corporations and others for reckless or intentional wrongdoing, such as selling products despite knowledge of their dangerous defects. Their goal is to deter future wrongdoing by the defendant or others poised to engage in misconduct.

The dispute highlights questions now arising over how much legal protection GM and Chrysler Group LLC have in certain product liability cases following 2009 government rescues that exceeded $70 billion. A bankruptcy judge allowed Chrysler to immunize itself from new punitive-damage claims arising from alleged manufacturing defects in vehicles sold before its restructuring. Chrysler’s immunity was the subject of a Page One article in The Wall Street Journal on April 5.

The skirmish in the widow’s case raises complex legal issues involving federal bankruptcy rules that sometimes allow companies to discard product liability or other risks, overruling state laws that give consumers rights to sue for damages.

GM received a $50 billion government rescue at the height of the financial crisis and then sold its best assets to the U.S. Treasury in a 2009 bankruptcy sale–making it a new auto maker legally divorced from the company that manufactured the U-Haul and millions of other vehicles. The newly formed GM posted a record $7.6 billion profit last year.

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Splendid job, Facebook. Splendid job.

Apple CEO Time Cook will be having a chat Tuesday night at the D10 conference — in only his second public interview in recent months.

In February, Cook appeared at the Goldman Sachs annual Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco where he discussed Foxconn workers, Apple’s product line, and the company’s long term financial outlook. Today’s talk at D: All Things Digital, an annual gathering of technology insiders in Ranchos Palos Verdes, Calif., is expected to cover similar themes.

Some are hoping the discussion will shed light on Apple’s product pipeline: the buzzed about iPhone 5, Apple’s game-changing TV (wherever it is), or maybe even an iPad mini.

Just don’t get your hopes up. The iPhone-maker doesn’t typically announce major products at non-Apple events, and Apple’s own World Wide Developers Conference, where it has introduced new iPhones in the past, is just weeks away.

Cook, despite efforts to stamp his personal brand on the company, has respected certain traditions, notably the company’s infamous secrecy.

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Research In Motion provides business update says ‘financial performance will continue to be challenging for the next few quarters’; sees Q1 operating loss; hires JP Morgan & RBC to assist the company in reviewing RIM’s business and financial performance (11.23 +0.23)
Co’s CEO Thorsten Heins stated “In terms of challenges, as I mentioned on the March financial results conference call, RIM is going through a significant transformation as we move towards the BlackBerry 10 launch, and our financial performance will continue to be challenging for the next few quarters. The on-going competitive environment is impacting our business in the form of lower volumes and highly competitive pricing dynamics in the marketplace, and we expect our Q1 results to reflect this, and likely result in an operating loss for the quarter. We are continuing to be aggressive as we compete for our customers’ business – both enterprise and consumer – around the world, and our teams are working hard to provide cost-competitive, feature-rich solutions to our global customer base. On the positive side, we expect to further increase our cash position in Q1 from the approximately $2.1 billion we had at the end of fiscal 2012.”

“The CORE (cost optimization and resource efficiency) program we told you about previously is focused on delivering key operational savings through various initiatives. The financial objectives for the CORE program are targeted to drive $1 billion in savings by the end of fiscal 2013, based on our Q4 run rate…While there will be significant spending reductions and headcount reductions in some areas throughout the remainder of the fiscal year, we will continue to spend and hire in key areas such as those associated with the launch of BlackBerry 10, and those tied to the growth of our application developer community. We will share more details regarding our progress throughout the year as programs are implemented or changes are completed.”

“To further enhance our commitment to successfully completing our transformation, after the release of our year-end financial results, we engaged J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and RBC Capital Markets to assist the Company and our Board of Directors in reviewing RIM’s business and financial performance.”

Business is eroding quickly. They have hired JPM and RBC Capital Markets to help the board figure out a plan of action or sale.

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$MS did a swell job on the $FB IPO. Stock breaks below $30 as options trading begins.

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$C had killed a panel which oversees toxic assets such as derivatives tied to Greek and Spanish debt. Currently $C has about $200 billion of these types of assets from what we can see. Dont’ forget about Enron style level 5 accounting….

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Very nice….

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