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Restricted - External Dominique Toublan+1 212 412 3841dominique.toublan@barclays.comBCI, USJack Sweeney+1 212 526 5729jack.sweeney@barclays.comBCI, USBradford Elliott, CFA+1 212 526 6704bradford.elliott@barclays.comBCI, USCorry Short+1 212 526 6253corry.short@barclays.comBCI, US FIGURE 1. Year-to-date, there have been $22bn of fallen angels andFIGURE 2. Fallen angels tend to underperform the most in the monthprior to downgrade-20020406080100120140Median Fallen Angel Performance vs. BB Index, Pre/Post-Downgrade (bp)Source: Bloomberg, Barclays ResearchFallen angels have outpaced rising stars for the firsttime in yearsThere have been $22bn of fallen angels in 2025, compared with $14bn of rising stars(Figure 1).For the first time in several years, ratings migration between investment grade andhigh yield has skewed more toward fallen angels. The bulk of 2025's fallen angel volumes can beattributed to NSANY, CE, and WHR, with the first two downgraded in February and WHRdowngraded in May. On the flip side, $5.25bn in rising stars stemmed from subordinated debt ofItalian banks UCGIM and ISPIM, which benefited from the ratings upgrade of Italy's sovereigndebt. Entering the year, we estimated that fallen angels would outpace rising stars, forecasting$30-50bn in rising stars versus $40-60bn in fallen angels (see Rising star and fallen angel 2025outlook: How the mighty may fall). Given our expectation for the economy to slow amid anincreasingly uncertain economic environment, fallen angel volumes should outpace rising starsover the course of 2H25.Fallen angels underperform BBs prior to their actual downgrades.Looking at the universe offallen angels since 2014, we find that they underperform the BB index by an average of 140bp inthe six months before the downgrade, with 110bp of that coming in the month just prior to theratings action (Figure 2). Following theofficialdowngrade, the debt actually tends tooutperform BB peers by as much as 70bp in the trailing six months.A few larger candidates have caught the market'sattentionAmid continued macro uncertainty, investor focus hasshiftedtoward a handful of issuers,including Ford, Paramount, and Warner Brothers Discovery, because of a combination ofoperational headwinds and the size implications for high yield if downgraded.In the media sector (covered by Andrew Keches),Warner Brothers'falling to high yield is nowour base case for 2025 (see Exploring the split options), and we are operating under theassumption that a split of the company is almost certain. The S&P rating is most at risk, in ourview, and a downgrade could come as soon as June. S&P will need to mark its FY25 EBITDA 2 1The 2024 outlook was published in late 2023, prior to Ford's upgrade to IG on October 30, 2023.estimates to market following earnings, which will raise its leverage estimates well above itstarget IG threshold for the company. We believe Moody’s is also likely to downgrade the credit inthe second half of 2025, though it will likely have a longer timeline than S&P, given that it movedto Negative outlook only in November 2024. We expect a longer timeline from Fitch as well, as itaffirmedits Stable outlook for WBD in February.Paramountis already crossover rated, with a BB+ rating from S&P, and remains at risk of fallingto high yield with Baa3 (Neg) and BBB- (Neg) ratings at Moody’s and Fitch, respectively. Thatsaid, credit outcomes will depend on the outcome of the Skydance deal review by the FCC. Wecontinue to think that the transaction will close (see Still Skydancing in the Dark), though theoutcome remains binary for credit, and the company would likely be quickly downgraded to HYif the deal is rejected.In the 2024 outlook version of this report,Ford’s potential upgrade dominated our rising starforecasts,1but in this year's May 2025 version, Ford now fits into the potential fallen angelcategory. It is crossover rated, already high yield at Moody’s and low BBB with a Negativeoutlook at S&P. S&P continues to review the sector and has discussed its high risk, with profitsand cash flows approaching the downgrade threshold amidtariffconcerns. Cost reductions andpricing to mitigate highertariffswill be crucial in defending its rating.Potential fallen angelsWe collaborated with Barclays' investment grade fundamental analysts to identify companies intheir covered sectors that they view as likely to be downgraded within the next twelvemonths, where we define "likely" as a greater than 50% probability. Our bottom-up analysissuggests around $110bn of potential downgrades, and we include some commentary in Figure9.We revise our forecast for 2025 fallen angels to $60-80bn (up from the $40-60bn).3 Intra-IG downgrade volumes have been historicallylow this yearDowngrades from A to BBB have totaled $1.7bn year-to-date.Single-A to BBB hashistorically been a key rating level change for investment grade companies, given buyer basedifferencesbetween the two categories. Although that hasshiftedin recent years given