By Bernard Condon, Associated PressShoppers enter a Bed Bath & Beyond store Monday, May 29, 2023, in Glendale, Colo. An Associated Press analysis found the number of publicly-traded “zombie” companies — those so laden with debt they're struggling to pay even the interest on their loans — has soared to nearly 7,000 around the world, including 2,000 in the United States.
“They’re going to get crushed,” Valens Securities Managing Director Robert Spivey said of the weakest zombies. As the number of zombies has grown, so too has the potential damage if they are forced to file for bankruptcy or close their doors permanently. Companies in the AP’s analysis employ at least 130 million people in a dozen countries.
For its part, Wall Street isn’t panicking. Investors have been buying stock of some zombies and their “junk bonds,” loans rating agencies deem most at risk of default. While that may help zombies raise cash in the short term, investors pouring money into these securities and pushing up their prices could eventually face heavy losses.
These so-called repurchases allow companies to “retire” shares, or take them off the market, a way to make up for new shares often created to boost the pay and retention packages for CEOs and other top executives. SmileDirectClub went from spending a little over $1 million a year on buying its own stock before the tax cut to spending $780 million as it boosted pay packages of top executives. One former CEO got $20 million in just four years. Stock in the heavily indebted teeth-straightening company plunged before it went out of business last year and put 2,700 people out of work.
In Britain, the Glazer family that owns much of the Premier League’s Manchester United soccer franchise loaded up the company with debt in 2005, then got the team to borrow hundreds of millions a few years later. At the same time, the family had the team pay dividends to shareholders, including $165 million to the Glazers themselves, while its stadium, the Old Trafford, fell into disrepair.
“They’ve created a tinderbox,” said Spitznagel, founder of Universa Investments. “Any wildfire now threatens the entire ecosystem.”For the first few months of this year, hundreds of zombies refinanced their loans as lenders opened their wallets in anticipation that the Federal Reserve would start cutting in March. That new money helped stocks of more than 1,000 zombies in AP’s analysis rise 20% or more in the past six months across the dozen countries.
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