As restructuring professionals gear up for a potentially slow year, some bright spots — low oil prices and indications that interest rates will begin rising — have emerged, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. Still, these discrete drivers of distress aren't expected to result in a broad shakeout across corporate America, as the credit markets remain friendly to many borrowers, keeping corporate defaults and chapter 11 filings low. One of the factors helping companies avoid default is a "robust" high-yield debt market, according to Dan Dooley, chief executive of turnaround consulting firm MorrisAnderson. For several years, companies without investment-grade credit ratings have been able to access the financing they need to push off debt maturities. Standard & Poor's Ratings Services, for instance, expects the U.S. corporate 12-month speculative-grade default rate to rise to 2.4 percent by Sept. 30, 2015, a modest increase from the 1.6 percent rate measured in September 2014 and 2.2 percent in December 2013.
