Moody’s classifies Yell debt buyback as default

Moody’s has said it considers UK directories company Yell’s purchase of £137.5m of its own loans for £48.1m as a default, and has consequently changed the company’s probability of default rating (PDR) to Caa2/LD from Caa2. The rating agency warned in December that, depending on the scale and price of the transaction, the buyback could count as a default.