Quantifying debt returns

Hey Folks,

Had an interview with a credit shop this week - one of the questions asked was "how would you assess debtholder returns and what considerations would you have if you were exploring alternative debt structures for its current loans?". (no reasons were given by the interviewer behind why this company might be looking for alternative debt structures)

My understanding on this was that debtholders measure returns based on yield-to-maturity, and so as long as debtholders received the same yield-to-maturity, they would in theory be fine with switching to alternative debt structures. Is this understanding correct? Are there other metrics I should have considered?

Assuming yield-to-maturity is the only consideration, how does one go about achieving the same yield to maturity? Some examples I can think of are: i) to segment the business (assuming it has multiple segments) - lend lower yield debt to the stable business and higher yield debt to riskier parts of the business. ii) use PIK debt if operating cashflow was the issue and you were comfortable with refinancing later on. If structured correctly, debtholders should be able to achieve similar yield-to-maturity. What else am I missing?

Does anyone have any idea on how to address this?