by Ron Carleton | May 26, 2010
For the 7th time in 10 years, Wal-Mart is #1 on the Fortune 500 list (in the other 3 years, it was #2). The company is the largest private employer in the U.S. and accounts for 8% of total retail sales in the US. As big box retailers (including Wal-Mart, Target, The...
by Ron Carleton | May 19, 2010
The problems of the last leveraged buyout bubble are still with us. From 2004 through 2007, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented level of LBO activity. That all ended with the collapse of the debt markets in the summer of 2007 (and the disappearance of the debt...
by Ron Carleton | Feb 16, 2010
The return investors receive for owning a debt instrument, whether a loan or a bond, is driven by the various risks of owning debt. This Job Aid from Financial Training Partners does a good job in explaining the major risks faced by debt investors.
by Ron Carleton | Feb 9, 2010
In earlier posts, we compared the pricing of corporate loans and corporate bonds. Here, we’ll look at how these markets interact, both in primary issuance and secondary market trading. First, some definitions: The Primary Market is where financial...
by Ron Carleton | Feb 1, 2010
In our last post, we described how to compare the cost of a floating rate instrument, such as a loan, to the cost of a fixed rate instrument, such as a bond. For one company, Jarden Corporation, we showed that the bond’s cost is 50 basis points higher than the...
