Talk:Distressed securities

Naming funds
"Known Distressed Funds" seems inappropriate, unless someone is prepared to keep it up-to-date. There also appears to be no cited basis for these. I'll remove this in a few days unless anyone has a different POV. Martin 12:45, 25 January 2007 (UTC) Agreed —Preceding unsigned comment added by Huntingtonjbear (talk • contribs) 01:46, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello Martin,
 * I have collected a list of more than 250 distressed funds and they are separated by funds which are acting in the US, those which are acting in Europe and those which have offices in US and Europe. To my knowledge only very few funds operate in Asia. I can provide the exact numbers if this is of interest. However I am almost sure that most of the funds would not be willing to show up on a list here... A lot of hedge funds don't have a website and try to stay away from the media as far as possible. My assumption is that they view the downside of publicity larger than the limited upside. At least this is how I would view it. Even when the existence of this funds and their distressed strategies is public information it would be inappropriate to post their names here without prior written consent.


 * Günter

Yields
Can anyone provide a reference to the statement that distressed credit instruments provide higher yields than their riskyness warrants? Zain Ebrahim 11:29, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Some citations are needed
I cleaned up a few things here and there; mostly cosmetics. I do, however, see at least 2 things that need to be cited and/or rewarded. Perhaps, most troubling is the following sentence:

Historically, distressed securities have traded at deep discounts to a rational assessment of their risk-adjusted value <...> This has led to above average returns (adjusted for risk) from investors in this asset class.

One can certainly make an argument that much of stressed/distressed/defaulted debt trades at a discount to its "intrinsic value" and many active players in the market have produced notorious risk-adjusted returns. However, when one looks at some broad market proxies (Altman-Salomon index is one; I think Merrill Lynch have an index of their own too), the picture is not particularly rosy. Altman's numbers (I linked to the report in the article) imply an abysmally low Sharpe ratio. And what are these "average returns" anyway that the author claims distressed securities beat?

Secondly, is there any data available on the capital raised in this space in recent years? I certainly catch a lot of hearsay, but I have yet to see some hard numbers. Index capitalization doesn't cut it - since we just entered what appears to be a vicious credit cycle, spreads haven't yet widened tremendously and corporate credit hasn't started defaulting in massive amounts like in 2002. The actual "market" now is actually smaller than it was in, say, '98... Agorboun 03:50, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Article Should be Retitled
Why is this article called Distressed Securities which is limited subset of Distressed Debt? Distressed debt which consists of junk bonds, as well as distressed securities and any other distressed asset, is not limited to "securities"... This article really needs to be enlarged to encompass a genuine financial topic rather than this esoteric article... Stevenmitchell (talk) 02:20, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I propose that vulture fund be merged and redirected into distressed securities. Merging the vulture fund page with distressed securities will not make the new page too long nor will any material be lost in transition. Rather the being too long, the proposed merge will properly expand the distressed securities page to include other types of distressed debt mentioned by Stevenmitchell in the above comment, and discussed on the vulture fund talk page. Comatmebro ~Come at me~ 00:04, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

I support this as interim step, subject to the conditions previously noted on talk:vulture fund and with the caveat that I intend to spin out a separate article at some stage covering the earlier history of the term. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 10:30, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Merge - I support a merge/redirect. It will improve the distressed securities page. The distressed securities page should only include a section on "vulture funds". Meatsgains (talk) 19:27, 9 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Comment: isn't this article about a type of debt and the other one about a type of investment fund? Considering that, I cannot see the purpose of the merge. In fact, wouldn't it be better to merge this article about the specialized concept of distressed securities into the more widely recognizable term (and more likely to be looked up by readers) of vulture fund? --Langus (t) 17:42, 8 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I've expanded my thoughts at Talk:Vulture_fund. --Langus (t) 18:08, 8 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Merge Langus I ask that you take a look at the Affordable Care Act page and note how the pejorative term Obamacare is dealt with on that page. I think it is a great example to follow in this situation. The vulture fund page is not about a specific hedge fund, or even a distinct few, but rather the act of investing in debt that is weak or in imminent default, which is exactly what the distressed securities page encompasses. The term vulture fund is a pejorative used to describe a small portion of distressed debt, and instead of having its own page it should be mentioned on the distressed securities page in a similar fashion to that of Obamacare as it is mentioned on the ACA page. Comatmebro  ~Come at me~ 21:13, 11 August 2014 (UTC)


 * Against - All I see is animosity against what it is perceived as (and probably is) a pejorative term, but that alone is not a good reason for merging two articles about different things, each of them with a good amount of content. Please note that this is not the same as Obamacare vs Affordable Care Act, which are exactly the same thing. I ask for input from uninvolved editors in the form of a Request for comment (RfC) or similar vein. --Langus (t) 07:15, 13 August 2014 (UTC)


 * A pejorative should not be used as the title of an article as per WP:POVNAME, which states that we should avoid titles as "colloquialisms where far more encyclopedic alternatives are obvious." Another alternative is to move the vulture fund page to distressed equity fund as Melody Lavendar suggested. The terms are quite synonymous and "distressed equity fund" would be a much more neutral and encyclopedic title. I still also support a redirect from vulture fund to distressed securities. Meatsgains (talk) 16:57, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
 * That would be the way to go IMO. --Langus (t) 01:18, 14 August 2014 (UTC)
 * I can agree with that as well, I think moving it to a page with a non-pjorative title would be more appropriate, and I see where you are coming from in your argument, Langus. Comatmebro  ~Come at me~ 14:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Merger proposal
I propose that distressed securities fund be merged into distressed securities. Most of the content in the distressed securities fund article overlaps with the content in the distressed securities page. A merge between the two pages will create one, concise, detailed article rather than having two separate articles sharing similar content. Because most of the content overlaps, a merge will not make the distressed securities article too long or cause any issues. Comatmebro ~Come at me~ 14:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Against - This is the same discussion as above (which was supposed to be closed BTW) and so my arguments remain exactly the same. --Langus (t) 03:35, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Against - We finally have this page at a title which actually describes what these funds are and what they do, so why move it to a less accurate title? If there is duplication of information about funds at distressed securities then the funds material there should be deleted and links added pointing here.  Jonathan A Jones (talk) 06:06, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Merge - Every company mentioned in the distressed securities page is also a distressed securities fund. I'll bring up the "oil company" argument again because it is still relevant users seem to avoid responding to it... Notice, if you search for “oil company” (a type of company) on Wikipedia, you are redirected to Petroleum industry (a type of industry). It would make sense for us to follow this same format by redirecting distressed securities fund (a type of company) to distressed securities (a type of industry). Wikipedia does not have pages dedicated to types of companies (distressed securities fund), only types of industries (distressed securities). Types of companies are Wikipedia categories, not pages. Comatmebro  ~Come at me~ 17:44, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment - I simply don't understand this argument. In particular I don't understand the claim that "distressed securities" are "a type of industry", when in reality they are a type of security, in which distressed securities funds deal.  To pursue your apparent analogy, they are much more like petroleum than they are like the petroleum industry. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 18:37, 16 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment Distressed securities are a "type of industry" as stated here which cites the emergence of the secondary debt market as "the creation of an industry of professional suers of foreign states.” Comatmebro  ~Come at me~ 23:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * This is becoming surreal. The actual quote "Modern sovereign debt litigation was born from the rise of the secondary debt market and the attendant opportunities for arbitrage, which, in turn, gave life to an industry of professional suers of foreign states" makes crystal clear that the industry is formed by the distressed securities funds, not the distressed securities themselves.  Once again I simply don't understand your argument which makes no sense at all. Jonathan A Jones (talk) 03:08, 19 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Against - the proposal, as written. In September 2014, DSF might have lower profile than the DS they invest in, and so an apparently sensible merge would define DS in a DSF subsection, but 10 years ago and maybe 10 years hence, the DS topic might generate a lot more interest. DS have a strong claim to notability beyond DSF because they are typically held by an unhappy accident, and not by the dedicated funds that specialize in recovery. The vultures might be more newsworthy now but every balance sheet has to dispose of some carcasses.Wragge (talk) 19:50, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Wragge Would you support adding a “Distressed securities fund" subsection to the distressed securities page? This could be an acceptable merge. Comatmebro ~Come at me~ 23:46, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree that a "DSF" subsection on a "DS" page would control duplications/forks, and that it might make sense if the merged article can define "DS" very tightly, though this is a bigger topic... For example, see the Category error? remark below. What will the merged article define as a "Distressed security"? If it continues to define "DS" as any security with a high credit spread then it's a very big topic that would benefit from having multiple articles. But if the page is specifically about the business & nature of securities from issuers that have already filed or are in legal condition of default then perhaps a single page would be best. Wragge (talk) 21:14, 13 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Merge - The distressed securities fund page could easily be trimmed down to one section with three subsections then added to the distressed securities page. I don't see an issue with this type of merge. Meatsgains (talk) 04:27, 22 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Category error? - the proposal correctly counts the overlap, however both articles mix both soverign and government debt and debt of public corporations. The topic of vulture funds is of high salience and only applicable to companies. While we may loosely speak of bankrupct countries, we really mean they would have trouble borrowing from abroad, while bankrupct companies may be reorganized and ownership may thus change hands. Not so for sovereign states. Thus despite what happens on merger of the articles, a separate article solely on distressed corporations dealing with vulture funds would be apt 4.30.122.246 (talk) 14:31, 23 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Against - one of the reasons DSFs get attention because of the public perception of these types of funds and the impact of their practices and its likely that a subset of wikipedia users would search for this when DSFs come into the news. For that reason I think these articles should remain separate so that DFS article can focus on that aspect which would by definition be diluted and less prominent in the DS article. Sargdub (talk) 19:40, 27 October 2014 (UTC)