In June, with nary a strand of fiber yet laid, Crowe went to Wall Street for $1.5 billion — and got $2 billion, at the time the biggest single junk-debt issue ever.
A management deal followed and the band released the January 1991 single Motown Junk via Heavenly Records.
They were shocked that our article glossed over the part played by single mothers, junk food, bovine growth hormone, the pill, makeup, antibiotics, cleaning products, chemotherapy drugs and dairy products (though, to be fair, not all at the same time or necessarily in that order).
I'd give muni paper a single B junk bond rating at best.
In the current single-digit junk bond yield environment, where there is little or no default risk premium embedded in the yields, the capital gain aspect of total return has evaporated.
They also remembered instances when the count was three-and-oh and a wanna-be hero, rather than take the walk, delivered a bloop single on a junk pitch, driving the go-ahead run home from second.
It was the worst single day for junk bonds ever, and the cost of borrowing shot up for even blue-chip companies: I.B.M. agreed to pay 8percentt interest on $4 billion of 30-year bonds, about twice the rate at which the federal government borrows money.
With lines like "I laughed when Lennon got shot", Manic Street Preachers' first single for Heavenly, Motown Junk, was a shot across the bows, a kamikaze manifesto, and an act of flamboyant heresy, establishing the Welsh quartet as indie's provocateurs-in-chief.
The column notes that Moody's, despite forecasting that 60percentt of the mortgages in the deal would default, still rated the senior securities at Baa3, the lowest investment grade rating, while Standard & Poor's had dropped its rating to single-B, a low junk rating.
That happened when the idea of a single "car czar" was junked and the White House took over the decision-making.
Last month, Standard & Poor's cut ACA Financial to junk from single-A, triggering write-downs of counterparty exposure at Merrill Lynch ($3 billion), CIBC ($2 billion) and undoubtedly other places.
