Wall Street prepares to profit off looming global credit crunch

By: John A.

Wall Street is hiring like gangbusters — because of a looming global credit crunch that could roil markets, and torpedo funds and businesses.

Firms are signing on professionals to profit off a mountain of near-junk corporate debt, according to insiders.

The Street is thought to be gearing up for the doomsday scenario some are expecting: a massive wave of corporate debt defaults, bankruptcies, restructurings and widespread layoffs.

But there is an immediate upside. Until the chips are cashed in, these debt mavens will pull in huge annual payouts — as much as $1 million or more — as hedge funds and banks snatch up teams of traders, credit and legal analysts, and managers tasked with profiting from this rising tide of high-risk corporate debt worldwide.

“Over the last six months, we have seen an increased demand for more experienced distressed investors, as funds anticipate there will be more opportunity in the market to invest in some of the troubled [corporate] names,” said New York-based headhunter Robin Judson.

Still, one investor said he has been anticipating a liquidity crunch since 2015.

“The mitigating factor has been a favorable US economy, and a more than helpful Federal Reserve,” said the investor, who asked not to be named.

“The leading indicators over the past five months have not been encouraging, and I see this all catching up to us in the middle of next year,” Judson told The Post.

The US is awash in BBB-rated bonds. In the past decade, the triple-B bond market — a notch above junk — has catapulted from $686 billion to $2.5 trillion, an unsurpassed record, according to Morgan Stanley.

And even the US junk bond market, one of the riskiest, has sprung back to life. Companies with dicey credit brought $11.7 billion in new high-yield debt to the market in January. That has encouraged fund investors to put the most capital into high-yield bonds since 2016, financial services firm Lipper noted.

While some see no immediate cause for alarm — many funds are profiting, and investing handsomely on dicey bond returns — skepticism abounds.

Many worry about a surge of triple-B bonds being downgraded to junk, a step that would result in huge losses for many funds — some now leveraged to the hilt — and also undermine economic confidence. And while subprime was center stage during the 2008 financial crisis, this bad corporate debt could be the cause of the next recession.

“This disaster could be postponed by a China deal, but with Europe and South America sucking wind and Brexit happening, we will feel the effects eventually,” said one banker.

Added Peter Schiff, chief global strategist of Euro Pacific Capital, in a commentary last week: “Very clear warning signs are now flashing that the US economy could be heading for trouble, and that the longest expansion in recent memory may soon end.”