# Professor Edward Altman explains why he believes defaults on junk bonds will spike to record-breaking numbers in 2020

1 Faculty News June 9, 2020 ![Bloomberg logo](/sites/default/files/styles/246w/public/assets/images/bloomberg192x144.jpg?itok=yV529lwz)>

Excerpt from [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-09/debt-shakeout-poised-to-make-faang-giant-retailers-even-bigger?sref=d16KMguM) -- "[Edward Altman](https://www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/edward-altman) said he expects a record number of mega-bankruptcies this year, surpassing the previous high of 49 in 2009 for companies with liabilities greater than $1 billion. Defaults on junk bonds also will spike, the professor emeritus at NYU’S Stern School added. 'It’s not only the impact of Covid-19, which is of course the primary reason, but also the enormous amount of debt that had been building up in the economy prior to it,' said Altman, who developed a widely used method called the Altman-Z-Score for predicting business failures."

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