[wweidendorf]

Very misleading article - per the company's latest 10-Q, they only have $4.8 billion in debt. On a net leverage basis, they are currently around 3.2x net debt / EBITDA which is down the fairway for most high yield public companies.

The remainder of their "debt" as the article lays it out is in Streaming Content Obligations and is not debt as you and I would think about it. Yes, it is contractually committed; however, unlike debt, they likely can default on their obligations and the only recourse would be a lawsuit for either damages or specific performance. (There is also no interest payment - as interest expense on $15.7 billion would be significant relative to their current debt burden.)

Compared to true debt instruments, which carry covenants that allow the debtholders to push the company into bankruptcy, the streaming content obligations very likely do not have any such ability to do so. (From what I can tell, the cross-default clauses in their debt instruments do not trigger in the event that they do not fulfill their streaming content obligations.)

[monochromatic]

Do the streaming content obligations explicitly say that the "creditor" can't initiate bankrupt proceedings or something? This seems strange.