CAM High Yield Weekly Insights
Fund Flows & Issuance: According to Wells Fargo, flows week to date were $1.4 billion and year to date flows stand at $3.0 billion. New issuance for the week was $3.9 billion and year to date HY is at $21.6 billion.
(New York Times) Trump Fires Acting Attorney General
- President Trump fired his acting attorney general on Monday night, removing her as the nation’s top law enforcement officer after she defiantly refused to defend his executive order closing the nation’s borders to refugees and people from predominantly Muslim countries
- The president replaced Ms. Yates with Dana J. Boente, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, saying that he would serve as attorney general until Congress acts to confirm Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama
- Ms. Yates’s order was a remarkable rebuke by a government official to a sitting president. Ms. Yates’s decision had effectively overruled a finding by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which had already approved the executive order “with respect to form and legality.”
(Company Release) Huntsman’s Pori, Finland Facility Experiences Fire
- A fire started at Huntsman Corporation’s titanium dioxide manufacturing facility in Pori, Finland. All Huntsman associates at the site have been accounted for and there were no injuries. The fire brigade responded quickly and extinguished the fire.
- Pori has a capacity of 130,000 metric tons, which represents approximately 15% of Huntsman’s total titanium dioxide capacity and approximately 10% of total European demand. The site is insured for property damage as well as earnings losses.
(The Hollywood Reporter) Charter Preparing to Claim Fox News Breached Carriage Deal
- The legal fight over Charter Communications’ television carriage contracts is expanding and will soon involve deals made by other cable and satellite companies. Charter has told a New York judge about its intention to sue Fox News over the “most favored nations” provision of its distribution agreement.
- Fox News has asserted breach of contract and fraud in the way Charter told regulators and shareholders of being the acquiring company only to hold up TWC’s contracts as surviving. Charter looks to dismiss Fox News’ fraud claim and is arguing that it is customary for a bigger operator, with more customers, to pay lower rates
(TMoNews) T-Mobile named No. 1 in Customer Service Satisfaction by Nielsen
- T-Mobile’s customer service has been named the best in the wireless industry.
- Nielsen Mobile Insights gave T-Mobile the top spot in Customer Service Satisfaction at the end of 2016, with Verizon, AT&T, and then Sprint following. T-Mobile beat out its competition in the Likelihood to Recommend, Net Promoter Score, and Overall Customer Satisfaction categories, too.
- T-Mobile has been named No. 1 in customer satisfaction by Nielsen Mobile Insights before, and John Legere and Co. are pretty pleased to win it again. Here’s the CEO’s statement on the news:
“We have the best damn care team in the business – at this point, that’s not even up for debate. But like everyone else at this company, our care team takes ‘we won’t stop’ pretty literally. They’ve got their sights on being the #1 care team in any industry, anywhere – not just wireless. That was so 2016.”
(Bloomberg) Weatherford Surges on Plans to Sell Assets And Be More ‘Boring’
- Weatherford rose the most in more than two months after announcing plans to pair up with the world’s biggest onshore driller and sell assets for as much as $2 billion
- Weatherford’s interim Chief Executive Officer Krishna Shivram is working on multiple fronts to revitalize the troubled oilfield service company as the oil industry begins to dig out from the worst downturn in a generation. He plans to sell Weatherford’s U.S. onshore fracking business and its land-rigs unit to cut debt and streamline its service offerings, shed more workers and boost sales through an alliance with Nabors Industries Ltd
- “You will see a new, revitalized Weatherford with disciplined growth and improved returns, with no surprises and better predictability,” Shivram told analysts and investors Thursday on a conference call
(Business Wire) HCA Reports Fourth Quarter 2016 Results
- Revenues in the fourth quarter totaled $10.641 billion, compared to $10.249 billion in the fourth quarter of 2015
- Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2016 increased 3.6 percent to $2.206 billion compared to $2.131 billion in the prior year period
- Fourth quarter same facility revenue growth of 3.4 percent was driven by an increase of 1.5 percent in same facility equivalent admissions and an increase of 1.9 percent in same facility revenue per equivalent admission in the fourth quarter of 2016