Ford and General Motors, two of the world's biggest
bond issuers, with $162 billion and $187 billion outstanding
in consolidated debt respectively, saw spreads on their
outstanding unsecured debt gap out to the widest ever level
last month. In the second week of October, Ford's dollar bond
spreads moved out by 170 basis points. A high triple-B
issuer, it was being quoted by traders in dollars and cents,
implying it was already viewed as junk.
The unsecured debt markets have been closed to
Ford's financing arm, Ford Credit, for most of the year. But
the issuer reasons that all is not lost. It has just been on
an extensive investor roadshow trying to comfort bondholders
about its diversity of funding, ability to refinance maturing
debt and, most significantly, how much...
