The Retail Industry Is Loaded With Risky Debt

A lot of the retail business is in a shaky state right now. A number of companies are propped up with risky, leveraged loans, leaving them vulnerable to default in the form of missed payments, forced debt restructuring, or even bankruptcy, all of which can lead to trouble with financing in the future. In April of last year, defaults by retailers reached a record high. The outlook for 2019 isn’t much better. “We are forecasting a 7% retail default rate, which would be above the 4.7% mark reached at the end of 2018 but below the peak 8.7% level seen in April 2018,” says Eric Rosenthal, senior director at the credit ratings firm Fitch Ratings. As the retail industry publication Chainstore Age reports, this forecast is well above Fitch’s 1.5% estimated default rate for the leveraged loan market overall. Read more at Quartz.