Pre-migration untagged articles

Companies in 2008 increasingly exercised their PIK toggles, an option allowing issuers to pay interest in kind by issuing more debt. The structure was included in many leveraged buyout financings as an in-case-of-emergency clause, but this year using it gained fans even among healthy companies as a way to preserve liquidity. The move has added to the debt loads of several already-heavily-indebted companies such as Energy Future Holdings and Hospital Corporation of America and could create trouble for some struggling LBOs including Claire's Stores and Realogy Corp. Below is a listing of some of the other names that toggled.

The holidays came early last week as Kingsland Capital Management got in the holiday spirit, acting as Santa Claus' elves to 45 children in the New York area.

Market players are considering removing the cancelability option from the single-name loan-only credit default swap contract in the U.S. [Discussions are ongoing and a February launch is being considered.

--Bram Smith, interim director of the Loan Syndications and Trading Association, on the Loan/Serv automated message system to launch in 2009.

Covered bond analysts have not pulled their punches when publishing supply forecasts for the coming year, with the most optimistic being Eu65bn and the most pessimistic being lower than in 1995 when the jumbo was created.

Australian banks stormed the EMTN markets this week with guaranteed notes. Most of the trades were Euroyen, demonstrating strong name recognition of Australian banks among Japanese investors.

The first damage assessments following the arrest of Bernard Madoff, the former Nasdaq chairman, last week for fraud have emerged. Although only about half of the $50bn which Madoff claimed had been lost through Bernard L Madoff Investment Securities and other ventures has been claimed, financial institutions around the world are counting their losses.

Fortis has published revisions to its pro forma financial position as of September 30 after the court of appeal in Brussels suspended its sale to BNP Paribas on December 12. Yesterday BNP Paribas cancelled a shareholder meeting that was to have finalised the plans for the sale.

BNP Paribas, the bank that has proudly proclaimed its ability to resist the financial crisis best, announced yesterday that its investment banking division had registered a loss of Eu720m for the first 11 months of 2008. Included in the loss was a Eu350m hit from exposure to the Madoff scandal.

The credit default swaps market faces an uncertain future as it comes to terms with a big drop in volume and the collapse in appetite for leverage.