Defaults on the Rise.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: Corporate defaults - Brief Article - Industry Overview

Following on the heels of all the gloom-and-doom pronouncements about the markets and the economy at year-end came word that worldwide corporate defaults had reached a 10-year high in 2000 -- along with the prediction that they will remain at high levels this year and into 2002.

Standard & Poor's Corp., which has tracked defaults since 1991, said the total hit 116 last year, up from 104 in 1999. Virtually all were in the U.S., with a small number in Canada and five other nations. Seven of the defaulted firms had been initially rated investment grade, the rest non-investment grade. The net volume of debt affected also climbed slightly over last year's $38.4 billion to...