Debt Report: A brief history of Ambac's financial woes

Ambac's financial reports and debt overview show a brief history of recent troubles for the bond insurer. In FactSet, you can take a closer look at Ambac growing and less financially sound through time.

Ambac's Woes*:

• Ambac had a negative debt-to-equity ratio in 2008, meaning the debts exceeded net worth of assets, and this ratio quadrupled from -0.5 in 2009 to -2.0 in 2010

• Over $2.7 dollars in term loans were opened by the bond insurer in 2009
• Interest expenses often put the company's operating income in the red, though they were steadily decreasing; Net Income was in the red in both June and March 2010, as well as many previous quarters
• In the last 9 quarters, Ambac only had positive net cash flow only one time, in March 2010

• Ambac's CDS spread skyrocketed, particularly in late 2010, as the company was perceived as increasingly unable to pay back its debts; its CDS curve was as high

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  as 57116.02 bps on November 4

Ambac is just the latest in a long series bankruptcies, particularly among companies with long-term financial health problems. In FactSet, you can trace information about company debt and financial health to determine how the status of this company and other recent bankrupt entities evolved over time.

* All information sourced from FactSet Fundamentals and FactSet DCS