✴️Chart of the Day: The Rise of Zombie Firms: Causes and Consequences

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) put out a research paper last Fall, titled “The rise of zombie firms: causes and consequences”, where they discuss the pervasive rot in the developed market corporate sector, especially here in the US.

Here’s a few of the notable highlights from the paper.

• 12% of all companies globally are now “zombie firms,” meaning that they can barely pay the interest on their debts. The number is 16% in the US, which is an eight-fold increase since the 90s.
• These zombie firms have been kept alive by low interest rates along with investor demand for “leveraged loans”.
• The leveraged loan market is now in the trillions (the exact number is unknown) and consists of low-quality corporate debt that’s at risk of being downgraded — which would cause forced liquidation — should interest rates rise too much.

Source: Macro-Ops.com