New data indicates that distressed investors last month bought up the smallest amount of debt from ongoing bankruptcies in more than a year, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. SecondMarket Inc., which operates a market for buyers and sellers of claims filed in bankruptcy cases, said in a new report that $1.5 billion worth of claim transfers took place in April, the lowest dollar value of claims traded since February 2010. Some of that trickling off can be attributed to the fact that after several years of being a claims-trading hotbed, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. emerged from Chapter 11 protection and made its first payment to creditors in April. According to SecondMarket, more than $6.4 billion in Lehman claims were traded in the 30 days before March 18, the deadline for Lehman creditors to get their names on the list for payment, versus $1.1 billion in claims traded in the 30 days following that date.
