Global Liability Management Quarterly: Altice France Asset Drop-Downs Galvanize Investors Into Organizing; Rackspace Uptier Exchange Less Aggressive Than GoTo Group and Apex Tools; Parties Settle Robertshaw Uptier Challengers; Vedanta Consent Provides About 2 Years Extra Time

Americas Credit Research: Jared Muroff, CFA; Meredith Dixon Europe Credit Research: Giulia Rusconi, Nikhil Varsani Europe Legal Research: Temitope Adesanya, Aditya Khanna Asia Credit Research: Junguang Tan In our first-quarter 2024 global quarterly report, highlighting liability management exercises, or LMEs, used by stressed creditors to partially refinance capital structures, Reorg reviews recent uptier transactions at Rackspace, GoTo Group and Apex Tools with an eye toward comparing them quantitatively, recent discussions around Altice France regarding the potential for a management-led distressed exchange, and Vedanta Resources’ maturity extension for three of its offshore bonds. This report summarizes “aggressive” transactions completed or contemplated by U.S., European and Asian borrowers during the first quarter that, among other results, raise cash, extend maturities or reduce outstanding principal, and sometimes all three. Transactions typically result in participating stakeholders improving their ranking relative to nonparticipating creditors. The report concludes with a table summarizing select aggressive U.S. LME transactions covered by Reorg in the quarter. To date, aggressive LMEs involving, for example, uptiering and drop-downs have been common in the U.S. market and very limited in the European market. However, discussions around a possible Altice France transaction have grabbed a lot of attention. Meanwhile, in China/Asia, the real[...]