Default credit losses reach record

Rating agency Moody’s Investors Service says that credit losses due to defaults reached record levels in 2001, as loss rates on speculative-grade defaulted bonds surged and recovery rates on the defaulted bonds plummeted for the third straight year.

In its fifteenth annual survey of global corporate defaults, Moody’s says 212 of its rated issuers defaulted on a total of $135 billion of debt in 2001, with the dollar volume of the 10 largest defaults in 2001 totalling $46.5 billion, a 39%