The long-term corporate credit rating on Hynix Semiconductor Inc. was lowered to 'SD' from double-'C' on Oct. 5, 2001. The downgrade followed a decision the previous day by 104 of Hynix's creditors, acting under Korea's new corporate restructuring promotion law, to grant a three-month freeze on all debt repayments due to them. The combination of a harsh market downturn in the company's mainstay dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) business, together with Hynix's high debt usage and concentration of debt maturities in 2001 and 2002, led to a liquidity shortfall and forced the company to undertake further debt restructuring at the end of fiscal 2001. These latest debt restructuring measures included a debt-to-equity swap and loan forgiveness, which Standard&Poor's considers
