I am republishing below “CRWV’s Debt Delusion” originally published on August 13th. Since then, CRWV’s stock dropped from $106 to $65 (as this is written mid-afternoon today). It’s going to go lower - much lower. The signal is the more alarming drop in the company’s unsecured bonds due 2032 to 80 cents on the dollar - a 15% yield, which is where CCC-rated credits trade. CRWV talks about bundling its loans into investment grade securities but it is far from an investment grade company - it is a pile of junk. Apparently the market had time to analyze CRWV’s Chernobyl-like financial statements as the company kept raising more debt at higher and higher rates with little to show for it but massive upcoming 3Q losses and empty promises to the media that everything will work out in the end. Management was able to find time to give these reassurances between phone calls and visits to its brokers instructing them to sell at least $2 billion of CRWV stock since the IPO. For all their talk of commitment to the company, they are insuring they won’t be left holding the bag when their impossible dreams prove to be…well, impossible. That will be left for those dumb enough to buy their bonds and stock.
I’ve been warning investors about CRWV since before its 2025 IPO. As noted below, the company has to generate at least $10 billion in cash flow every year through 2030 in order to meet its debt and lease obligations. They can’t do that out of cash flow so they will have to raise more money to do so - and with its cost of debt capital now in the mid-teens, and its stock price plunging, the options are narrowing. Raising equity will highly dilutive and debt will carry double-digit interest payments - if there are still enough investors willing to double down on failure.
The cost of a subscription to The Credit Strategist pays for itself many times over. When CRWV collapses, that will be proven again as it has over the last 25 years. The market is now telling you what I started warning about more than a year ago. CRWV is going to fail. Mark my words. The only question now is what’s the over/under on the 3Q loss and how low its bonds and stock are going to trade before the company has to restructure. My money is in the range of -$800 million.
From August 13th:
Most investors might show concern about a company whose Form 10Q includes fifty (that is not a misprint - 50!) pages of “Risk Factors,” or discloses a debt/equity ratio of over 800% (including long-term debt and operating leases), or negative working capital of over $10 billion, or quarterly interest expense of $700 million on quarterly revenue of $2.6 billion.1 But investors in CRWV’s stock and debt don’t seem to mind at all. This is what happens in the middle of a bubble. The numbers paint a picture of an egregiously leveraged company that will have to pull off a miracle to survive.
Investors focused on the impressive year/year doubling of revenue from $2.575 billion in 2Q26 from $1.212 billion in 2Q25, driving up the stock more than 20%. But they ignored the more than doubling of the quarterly net loss from -$290 million in 2025 to -$626 million in 2026. Management forecasts of high backlogs and infinite demand for “compute” obfuscated the precarious reality of CRWV’s finances that were barely mentioned in press reports and television interviews.
The company’s financial statements show a dangerously leveraged company that is charging off a cliff to the cheers of Wall Street underwriters and investors. As usual, the rating agencies are asleep at the switch. CRWV should be rated B-/CCC+ until it demonstrates it can generate a profit and pay down debt, two goals it is moving further away from every quarter. Instead, it is rated B+ by S&P, Ba3 by Moody’s and BB- by Fitch (individual deals backed by specific collateral and customers are rated higher). This company is nowhere near B+/Ba3/BB- quality. Its equity market cap could vaporize overnight.
Stock investors tend to focus on income statements. I don’t know what credit investors focus on anymore but I was taught to concentrate on the balance sheet, cash flow statement and footnotes. The income statement is the most easily manipulable part of the financial statements and the least useful in terms of determining a company’s financial health. The balance sheet and cash flow statement (along with the footnotes) are essential to tell investors what the income statement distorts or hides. In this case, CRWV’s income statement provides very little useful information; in contrast, the balance sheet and cash flow statement provide invaluable information regarding the company’s financial condition - information that a prudent investor would read carefully and get the heebie-jeebies.
First and foremost, CRWV faces enormous debt-related payment obligations through 2030. First, $20.6 billion of debt amortization payments through 2030 as follows: $4.4 billion for the rest of 2026; $6.2 billion in 2027; $4.4 billion in 2028; $2.4 billion in 2029; and $3.2 billion in 2030. Second, at least $10 billion of operating lease obligations during that period. When you add at least $2.5 billion of annual interest expense each year, CRWV has to generate at least $10 billion annually through either cash flow or additional debt or equity raises just to meet its financing obligations before coverin operations and its enormous capex commitments. How much more is the Street going to lend the company while it reports rising losses every quarter? As the financing completed in August showed ($2.6 billion at ~9.875%), the cost of capital has risen significantly for the company. Future borrowings are likely to grow even more expensive (10% could be the new bottom) as CRWV competes with larger investment grade hyperscalers for capital that may seem abundant today but won’t remain that way forever.
If I were managing the company, I would use the high stock price to sell as much stock as possible as quickly as possible (but obviously I would not be a buyer!). That would undoubtedly pressure the price but since investors can’t seem to get enough of the stock, it would be wise to strike while the iron is hot. It’s unclear how much longer the company will be able to keep tapping the debt markets or how much more debt it can handle. It should use money raised to reduce debt as quickly as possible because the greatest threat to CRWV is its balance sheet, even greater than a slowing of the AI buildout.
CRWV was created by a bunch of Wall Street financiers to take advantage of the opportunity they saw to build data centers for AI. The problem they faced was that, unlike the hyperscalers or Silicon Valley insiders like Anthropic and OpenAI or SPCX, they chose to finance themselves with more debt than equity. CRWV did attract equity from NVDA and gained the backing of Magnetar, a very smart financing group, but the company was still a debt- rather than equity-based creation that was facing much larger and wealthier competitors. They’ve done well for themselves but they can’t sustain the business with its current debt-dependent balance sheet.
CRWV will be disposable if (when) the AI buildout exceeds its grasp and its data centers (to the extent they are built rather than just announced) become superfluous. The worst thing a company wants to be is the most leveraged player in an overbuilt industry and that is CRWV’s position today. It’s just a matter of time until the company can’t handle its huge debt load which is another way of saying it won’t be able to keep all the promises it made. All you have to know is look hard at the numbers to start the countdown.
In a recent Notes posting I made an error an said that the company was approaching $1 billion in annual interest. My bad. At $640 million of quarterly interest as reported in 2Q26, CRWV is already facing $2.5 billion in annual interest expense before adding the interest expense from the $2.6 billion borrowing it completed in August (after the quarter ended) and the $1.2 billion it drew from its revolver in August as well. I apologize for the error.
I went through the credit trading program at Manufacturers Hanover Trust in 1979. The teachers were loan officers that had made bad loans. One of the case studies was a garment manufacturer that grew so fast it ran out of cash, eaten by its need for working capital.
Now private credit and affiliated insurance companies lend other people’s money and are only in it for the management fees.
Have you done a separate more detailed note on this?