Gordon Johnson
Founder & CEO of GLJ Research
CoreWeave's $7.5B debt maturity around June 2027 is stressing its credit. Default insurance on its debt costs about 11.2% a year; at a standard 40% recovery rate, that implies roughly 61% risk-neutral five-year default odds, up from about 31% in June. Despite a bond rebound reported by DeItaone, CoreWeave is distressed, not dead. x.comÂ
CoreWeave's debt-funded GPUs make financing costs central to its business, while credit markets now price severe distress. Its five-year CDS reached 1,194 basis points on October 15 and remained near 1,145 last week, implying roughly 60% default odds over five years. If yields fall after the FOMC yet shares cannot hold $50, the balance sheet deserves more scrutiny than the macro backdrop. x.comÂ
CoreWeave's $35B in debt against $5B in equity and three customers providing 72% of sales leave it financially vulnerable. Its CDS at 1,047 bps implies a 58% chance of default within five years; Lehman's was about 700 bps the Friday before it filed, though Lehman was seen as much more systemic. Jensen Huang may understand CoreWeave better than anyone, but rescuing it could require buying the remaining 87% of its equity and assuming about $40B in debt. x.com x.com x.com x.comÂ
CoreWeave's record-high credit-default swaps flag risk to the buying case. Liquid Trading says its bonds are distressed and the swaps price in a greater than 50% chance of default within five years. Even so, CoreWeave is a "crazy discount" that needs to recover from recent negative narratives before it takes off. x.com x.com x.comÂ
CoreWeave's debt maturities compound its financing pressure. At June's end, $8.1bn was due within a year against $6.4bn cash; bond yields near 15% and rising total debt add to the strain. x.comÂ
CoreWeave's credit-default swaps imply a high risk of default that makes the stock too risky to own. At 1,100 basis points, they imply a 50-60% chance of default at some point in the next five years; if it defaults, the stock would likely go to zero. HSBC says CoreWeave's 8.9% return on invested capital remains below its borrowing costs, so further investment with that return profile destroys value; HSBC sees 2030 EPS 64% below consensus. x.com x.comÂ
CoreWeave need not borrow at the 15.6% yield on its existing bonds or accept new contracts that lose money. Chamath's debt warning extrapolates that market yield to future financing, while CoreWeave can decline contracts whose rates do not work; its debt table shows varied effective rates, mostly below 15%. x.comÂ
CoreWeave's unsecured bonds are pricing distress bordering on default risk, a warning for its equity. The five-year bond yield rose to 14% today and reached 15% intraday; the credit stress also helps explain pressure on AI infrastructure plays. x.comÂ
CoreWeave looks like a poor long because its debt now exceeds its market capitalization. x.comÂ
CoreWeave's debt burden is overstated when a single bond's 15% yield is treated as the rate on all its debt. Its weighted-average debt yield is 8.5%, not 15%, undercutting the market's bankruptcy talk. x.com x.comÂ
CoreWeave's heavy debt leaves it with a substantial financing burden. Annual interest expense is about $3.3 billion; a debt overview sourced to company filings and Bernstein analysis lists $40.95 billion outstanding at an 8% effective interest rate. x.comÂ
