Moody’s Investors Service said that companies that defaulted for a second time in the years following the latest recession accounted for more than twice the proportion of total defaults than the historical average, Bloomberg News reported today. Firms that missed payments on obligations more than once due to debt swaps or bankruptcy reorganizations made up 39 percent of defaults between Sept. 1, 2010, and Sept. 30, 2014, according to a report released today by the ratings firm. That compares with the historical average of 17 percent since 1987, according to Moody’s. Federal Reserve intervention that lowered interest rates and record investments into the credit markets allowed companies having trouble making debt repayments to refinance bonds and loans and extend maturities, helping some to temporarily avoid default. “A fair number of weaker companies used the abundant liquidity in the market to delay additional defaults or even bankruptcy throughout the recession default cycle, only to succumb later,” wrote the authors of the report led by David Keisman. Twenty-eight of the 72 defaults since August 2010 were re-defaults, the authors wrote in the report. Sixteen of the 28 were by companies owned by private-equity firms, including Energy Future Holdings Corp., which completed numerous distressed exchanges before filing for bankruptcy last year, according to Moody’s.
