Can Hollywood’s Biggest Media Companies Avoid Getting Crushed by Debt?

Variety ^ | January 15, 2019 | Cynthia Littleton and Brent Lang

[C19fan]

Randall Stephenson, AT&T’s chairman-CEO, summoned all of his folksy Oklahoma earnestness as he made an enthusiastic pitch to Wall Street analysts about the telephone company’s bold efforts to transform itself into a multimedia powerhouse. It was late November, less than six months after AT&T had wrapped up its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner. But before Stephenson could wax poetic about his plans to revitalize HBO, Warner Bros. or other newly acquired AT&T subsidiaries, he felt compelled to address the elephant in the room.

“If you hear nothing else this afternoon, I want you to hear me on this,” Stephenson said at the company’s investor presentation in New York. “Our discretionary cash flow is going to go to one place. It’s going to be paying down debt.”

[C19fan]

Something tells me all these companies saddle with enormous debts are not going to make it.

[PGR88]

The Federal Reserve has already given up their “hawkish” stance, and interest rate increases will stop — so that will help them. A rapid rate rise for rolling-over debt will not crush corporations, at least in the short-medium term.

Nonetheless, corporate America, and the American economy, has been on a debt binge.

[proxy_user]

The biggest companies have many options. They can halt share buybacks, they can cut the dividend, the can reduce capex, or they can even start selling all the shares they bought back.

The large companies issued commercial paper at a fixed rate. Their interest rates will not go up until they have to roll it over. This will happen over a period of years, and they will have time to adjust.

[RideForever]

Well, they might avoid bankruptcy if they stopped issuing propaganda for the globalists that counters the Judeo-Christian societal elements of Western Civilization.

I miss Walt Disney. The original.

[SunkenCiv]

Two words -- who cares? All of them should burn to the ground. Thanks C19fan.

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