The New High Yield Bond Market: Investment Opportunities, Strategies and Analysis

The history of traditional junk bonds was brief and dramatic. The speculative excesses of the 1980s (in the form of leveraged buyouts, recapitalizations, mergers and acquisitions) precipitated the bust of the high yield bond market in the early 1990s. Defaults skyrocketed, spreads widened and credit for higher risk transactions evaporated. Perhaps the most dramatic part of the story is that it never really ended:
The high yield bond market has been reborn, but with a very different set of rules for playing the game.
In fact, brokerage firms, banks, mutual funds, insurance companies, pension funds and other investors never really left the game. The major institutional players, who poured hundreds of billions of dollars into high yield bonds over the past decade, have used the lessons of that era to redefine and expand the high yield market.
The New High Yield Bond Market: Investment Opportunities, Strategies and Analysis is the first book ever to address the new realities of the traditional market for corporate debt and to illustrate the use of new alternative investment vehicles now being used to reduce risk without sacrificing return. To reflect the dual purpose of this comprehensive volume, editors Jess Lederman and Michael P. Sullivan have organized the work of industry experts in two parts.
Part One, "High Yield Corporate Debt," focuses on the traditional market, but emphasizes opportunities and analytical techniques that have emerged in recent years. Specific topics include merger, acquisition and HLT (highly leveraged transaction) deals; evaluating corporate bond downgrades and defaults; securitization of high yield debt portfolios; and opportunities in distressed securities.
Part Two, "Alternative High Yield Markets," explores the most significant markets and innovative products that investors now use to diversify high yield portfolios. Topics include developing-country sovereign bonds, CMO residuals, stripped and subordinate mortgage-backed securities, and subordinate credit card certificates.