Underwriters and Covenants in the Pandemic

Andrew Kissner and Benjamin Butterfield participated in a panel at the Turnaround and Workouts Distressed Investing Conference titled “Underwriters and Covenants in the Pandemic.”

For the last decade, the prevailing wisdom was that a historic bull-run had precipitated a shift in the high yield credit markets towards financings on increasingly borrower-friendly terms. At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, many market observers speculated that the ensuing dislocation might spell an end to this era of “cov-lite” lending. This panel explores whether and to what extent this has come to pass with respect to new deals executed in the wake of the pandemic, and discusses the consequences that a decade of cov-lite underwriting has had on today’s workouts and restructurings.

Watch the panel: