Prospect News reports four new defaults for Aug. 20-Aug. 26, S&P one

By Caroline Salls

Pittsburgh, Aug. 28 – Prospect News reported four new defaults for the period of Aug. 20 through Aug. 26.

Specifically, Prospect News reported a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing made by USA Discounters, Ltd., a Chapter 9 bankruptcy filing made by the City of Hillview, Ky., an American Seafoods Group LLC distressed exchange related to the 15% senior notes due 2017 issued by ASG Consolidated LLC and ASG Finance, Inc. and a default on Talisman-4 Finance plc’s class A commercial mortgage-backed floating-rate notes due 2015.

Prospect News has reported 117 defaults so far in 2015, including 56 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filings, 17 missed interest payments, 10 Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act filings, eight distressed exchanges, five Chapter 15 bankruptcy filings, four bankruptcy filings, two each of reorganizations, defaults and missed principal payments and one each of Chapter 7 bankruptcy filings, Chapter 9 bankruptcy filings, administrations, arrangements of debt, judicial recovery requests, missed interest payments paid within the grace period, missed principal and interest payments, missed payments, insolvencies, schemes of arrangement and moratoriums.

Meanwhile, Standard & Poor’s recorded one default for the period, raising its year-to-date default tally to 71.

S&P said it lowered its corporate credit rating on Wilton Holdings Inc. to SD from CC after the company completed the exchange of roughly $514 million of unrated holding company payment-in-kind notes into preferred equity.

The agency said there is a possibility that a conventional default could soon occur given Wilton’s highly leveraged capital structure, increasing debt amortization requirements and very low covenant levels.

Of the 71 defaults so far in 2015, S&P said 22 resulted from missed interest or principal payments, 20 from distressed exchanges, 14 from bankruptcy filings, seven from regulatory intervention and one each from a judicial reorganization and a de facto debt-for-equity swap. The other six defaults are confidential.

S&P said 41 of the 71 issuers that have defaulted so far this year are based in the United States, 14 in emerging markets, 12 in Europe and four in the other developed nations, which include Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand.

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