Exploding debt covenants in public companies
Not sure if anyone on WSO has experience with this, but came across this story on the FT which i found interesting/ slightly amusing.
TLDR:
- Investors found a loophole/ breach in Avid Bioservices' bond covenants, accelerated the bond and made some $$$ out of the situation.
- Avid raised $160mn in convertible senior notes to meet the demand, but faced increased coupon payments and the stock price subsequently tanked.
How is that a thing? I would have assumed that companies somehow keep track of that stuff... Anyone with actual experience interested in chiming in on how debt, covenants etc. are monitored on a day-to-day basis (if at all..) in listed companies? :)
Read Matt Levine's blog on that (and subscribe to receive it to your email). If I recall, the covenant was some esoteric embedded operational procedure like the bonds had to become registered on some platform by X date. The company forgot and they weren't. This wasn't something really quantifiable and most people would miss it unless they just happened to stumble upon it.
Cool, thanks for the reply and for the blog recommendation! (0 background in this, so please forgive my basic questions)
Are the actual terms/covenants generally fairly standardized in the market, or is there room for people to engineer this kind of stuff beyond purely "procedural issues" as in this case?
Just wondering if "covenant sniping" could become a common occurence with ChatGPT and friends around...
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