In a market-based financial system, credit is held by dispersed creditors, and out-of-court renegotiation of debt is more likely to fail because of hold-out problems; in a bank-based system, out-of-court renegotiation stands good chances to succeed. Since out-of-court renegotiation is a...

Debt with many creditors is analyzed in a continuous-time pricing model of the levered firm. We specifically allow for debtor opportunism vis-a-vis a non-coordinated group of creditors, in form of repeated strategic renegotiation offers and default threats. We show that the creditors' initial...