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Billionaire vulture investor Wilbur Ross, chairman of W.L. Ross & Co., is scouring the beat-up auto industry for investing opportunities.

Rene de Laigue, global head of leveraged and acquisition finance at SG Corporate & Investment Banking, on opening up a leveraged finance business in the U.S.

Allegheny Energy Supply is attempting to recast a $1.075 billion term loan "B" obtained last year, according to Power, Finance & Risk, an LMW sister publication.

The Blackstone Group is starting a European collateralized debt obligation business based in London and hired Debra Anderson, portfolio manager at Intermediate Capital Group, according to BondWeek, an LMW sister publication.

Distressed debt investors have started to pile into Collins & Aikman debt after the bank loans and bonds took a massive dive late last month.

The Blackstone Group is starting up a European collateralized debt obligation business based in London and hired a staffer to spearhead the effort.

Distressed recovery rates will drop by over 10% this year, predicts Edward Altman, the Max L. Heine professor of finance at the Stern School of Business at New York University.

Federated Investment Management has been reversing its overweight position to cyclical corporates and its underweight to financials on the view economic growth is slowing, according to Joe Balestrino, portfolio manager of $5 billion in fixed income in Pittsburgh, Pa.

-- Joe Balestrino, portfolio manager of $5 billion in fixed income at Federated Investment Management, on why he will refrain from raising financials to neutral and from lowering cyclicals to neutral.

A spike in oil prices is the biggest threat to global economic growth and the capital markets as a whole, said Jack Malvey, chief fixed-income strategist at Lehman Brothers.