.S.News & World Report
More Companies At Risk of Failing
Tuesday March 10, 12:46 pm ET
By Rick Newman
Everybody hopes the economy bottoms out and starts to improve tomorrow. Or sooner. But there are few signs of an imminent recovery. One obvious indicator is the health of big companies - you know, the ones that have been announcing all those four- and five-digits layoffs recently. And the outlook for them seems to be getting worse, not better.
Moody's, the ratings agency, recently published a list of "bottom rung" companies most likely to default on their debt. The criteria are technical, but the upshot is that a lot of companies are in deep trouble - and the list is getting longer, not shorter. Moody's predicts that the default rate on corporate bonds this year will be three times higher than in 2008, and 15 times higher than in 2007. Defaults are often the last step before a bankruptcy filing. And bankrupt companies, obviously, don't usually hire people. They dramatically shed costs and workers and sometimes liquidate completely, firing everybody.
There will be a lot more bankruptcies. Moody's places 283 companies on its bottom-rung list, up from 157 a year ago. Since the quarterly list was last updated, 73 additional companies have fallen to the bottom rung. Twenty-four companies made their way off the list - but mostly because they defaulted on their debts. Only one company, Landry's Restaurants, got off the list because its circumstances improved.
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