全球不良信用每周综述

GLOBALDistressed CreditWeekly Wrap Loan issuer default rate eases in 2025, butmega-bankruptcies lift dollar amount Inside Bankruptcy Beatpage 5Weekly Wrap: Empty tillpage 10European loans close 2025 on firm groundpage 13News from the European deskpage 15Media leads distressed sectors in US HY indexpage 17 Out-of-court liability management exercises continued todominate the restructuring landscape in 2025, though the pace ofactivity steadily declined from all-time highs in 2024. As mega-bankruptcies returned, the dollar volume of conventional defaultsrose by nearly 40% year-over-year, even as fewer loan issuers fell bythe wayside. As of Dec. 31, the trailing 12-month default rates of the MorningstarLSTA US Leveraged Loan Index were as follows: While the number of issuers tripping conventional defaults fellduring the year, several mega bankruptcies pushed the LTM dollarvolume of defaults nearly 40% higher from the end of 2024. Thedefault rate by amount was 1.23% at the end of 2025, representing$17.4 billion of loan defaults in the index. This is up from 0.91%, or$12.6 billion, at the end of 2024. •Payment default rate by amount: 1.23%, up from 0.91% inDecember 2024. •Payment default rate by issuer count: 1.18%, down from 1.45% ayear ago. •Dual-track default rate by issuer count: 3.35%, down 130 bps year-over-year. The year-end payment default rates by amount and issuer count are52 bps and 89 bps lower than the respective post-rate-hike cyclepeaks of 1.75% in July 2023 and 2.07% in February 2024. LCD’s monthly default report features the legacy payment defaultrate and a dual-track default rate by count for index issuersconducting distressed liability management exercises (LMEs).More details and the methodology can be foundhere. The 10-year averages are 1.71% by issuer count and 1.52%by amount. Balance sheet maneuvers When including distressed liability management exercises thatprompted a downgrade to ‘D’ or ‘SD,’ the combined rate for paymentdefaults by issuer count fell to 3.35% in December, from 3.68% inNovember, as one issuer was added and five rolled off the trailing12-month calculation. At the end of 2024, the dual-track default rate hit a post-rate cyclehigh of 4.70%. The number of payment and bankruptcy defaults continued to trendlower in 2025. At the end of December, 13 companies defaultedon loans in the trailing 12-month period, down from 17 at theend of 2024. With no new defaults in December, and one issuer rolling off thecalculation, the default rate of the Morningstar LSTA US LeveragedLoan Index fell to 1.18% by issuer count, from 1.26% in Novemberand 1.45% at the end of 2024. Looking at December, a single liability management exercisemarked a quiet end to an otherwise active year for out-of-courtrestructurings. LMEs accounted for 65% of the trailing 12-month count at the endof December. Though still elevated, that share is a step back fromthe high watermark of 73% in July 2025. Newfold Digital Holdings Groupreceived a commitment of $100million in new financing as part of a balance sheet overhaul inwhich revolving facility lenders rolled outstanding borrowings intoa new facility due in January 2029, and first-lien term loan lendersexchanged at a discount into a combination of new first-out termloans and second-out term loans due in April 2029. Meanwhile, secured noteholders exchanged at a discount into acombination of new first-out and second-out exchange notes, andunsecured noteholders also exchanged at a discount into the newsecond-out exchange notes. Over the past 12 months, 24 index issuers conducting a distressedLME contributed to the dual-track default rate. This compares to therecord trailing-12-month reading of 38 in December 2024. Looking at sectors across the LME landscape, softwarecompanies and healthcare companies remained heavilyrepresented, with Software and Healthcare Providers & Servicesmaking up 21% and 13% of such activity over the last 12 months,respectively. In terms of the share of LMEs over payment defaults, thedominance of out-of-court LMEs that began in earnest after theFederal Reserve began hiking rates in 2022 eased in the secondhalf of 2025. Meanwhile, negative ratings activity increased as 2025 drew toa close, with the ratio of loan facility downgrades to upgradesclimbing to 2.14x on a rolling three-month basis in December, from1.73x in November (which marked the lowest reading for this metricsince March 2024). Stress in the system While instances of LMEs and payment defaults gradually decreasedin 2025, the number of loan facilities priced at distressed levelsreached a two-year high in December. A forerunner to future default activity, the distress ratio by count(defined as the share of loans below 80 cents on the dollar)climbed to 7.24% by the end of 2025, up from 4.44% at the end of2024 and marking the highest level for this stress gauge sinceNovember 2023. By dollar amount, the distress ratio climbed to 4.34% in December,from 4.06% in Nove