In May, the leveraged loan market suffered its biggest default in 31 months when Houghton Mifflin (formerly Education Media & Publishing) filed a prepackaged bankruptcy petition. The publishing firm’s loan ranks thirty-first among S&P/LSTA Index loans by size, at $2.6 billion. As a result, the loan default rate climbed to a 14-month high of 1.05% by principal amount, from 0.56% in April. By number of loans, however, the rate ticked down to 0.92%, from 0.93%.

This chart is taken from LCD News’ monthly default analysis, which is available to subscribers. Also in that analysis:

• Default rate, by number of defaults
• Default “candidates” (rated B-/bid 70 or lower)
• EBITDA growth of leveraged loan issuers
• Volume of loans due, through 2013
• Share of outstanding loans rated CCC+ or lower
• Share of performing loans bid 70 or lower
• Imputed default rate: Leveraged loans