By Matthew Goldstein and Mary Williams Walsh | New York Times
Freedom Mortgage, one of the nation’s largest mortgage lenders, is looking for additional financing as millions of homeowners are expected to stop making mortgage payments. The Cheesecake Factory said this past week it wouldn’t be able to make rent payments on its leases because of lost business. And giant companies from Kraft Heinz to Ford have tapped billions of dollars in credit from banks in preparation for an uncertain future.
These are scary times for American companies as they grapple with the hit to their businesses from the shutdown of major parts of the economy from the coronavirus. But for one group in the financial services industry — restructuring and bankruptcy advisers and lawyers — the emerging signs of pain for companies, both big and small, spell booming business.
Corporations across a wide swath of industries and in vastly different financial straits are being forced to stretch their cash, cut costs, avoid loan defaults and prepare to potentially reorganize their businesses.
