The Indenture contains negative covenants that may have a limited effect.
Unless otherwise stated in the applicable prospectus supplement, the Indenture contains limited covenants that will restrict our ability and ability of certain of our subsidiaries to create certain liens, enter into certain sale and lease-back transactions and consolidate or merge with or into, or sell our consolidated assets substantially as an entirety to, another person. These limited covenants contain exceptions that will allow us and our subsidiaries to incur liens with respect to material assets. In light of these exceptions, holders of the securities may be structurally or contractually subordinated to a substantial amount of new debt. Additionally, the covenants in the Indenture will not limit the ability of us and our subsidiaries to, among other things, incur unsecured debt, pay dividends, repurchase stock, make investments, dispose of assets not constituting our consolidated assets substantially as an entirety or enter into transactions with our affiliates.
None of our subsidiaries will be guarantors of any securities, and therefore any securities will be structurally subordinated to the liabilities of our subsidiaries.
Unless otherwise stated in the applicable prospectus supplement, none of our subsidiaries will guarantee our securities offered hereby, and therefore such securities will rank effectively junior to any liabilities of our subsidiaries. Except to the extent that we are recognized as a creditor of such subsidiary, in the event of a foreclosure, dissolution, winding-up, liquidation, reorganization, insolvency, bankruptcy or similar proceeding of any of our subsidiaries, holders of their indebtedness and their trade creditors will generally be entitled to payment of their claims from the assets of those subsidiaries before any assets are made available for distribution to us. Even if we were a creditor of any of our subsidiaries, our rights as a creditor would be effectively subordinated to any security interest in the assets of those subsidiaries and would be subordinate to any indebtedness of those subsidiaries senior to that held by us.
Although securities offered hereby will be referred to as “senior notes,” such securities will be effectively subordinated to the rights of our existing and future secured creditors.
Unless otherwise indicated in the applicable prospectus supplement, the debt securities offered hereby will be our unsecured obligations, and therefore such debt securities will rank pari passu in right of payment with all of our existing and future indebtedness that is not expressly subordinated in right of payment to such debt securities and effectively junior to all of our secured indebtedness and other secured obligations, to the extent of the assets securing such indebtedness.
The Indenture permits us to incur additional indebtedness, including secured indebtedness. If we were to default under our obligations under any of our secured indebtedness, our secured creditors could proceed against the collateral granted to them to secure that indebtedness. If any secured indebtedness were to be accelerated, there can be no assurance that our assets would be sufficient to repay in full that indebtedness and our other indebtedness, including any series of debt securities. In addition, upon any distribution of assets pursuant to any foreclosure, dissolution, winding-up, liquidation, reorganization, insolvency, bankruptcy or similar proceeding, secured creditors will be entitled to receive payment in full from the proceeds of the collateral securing our secured indebtedness before the holders of our unsecured indebtedness, including any series of securities, will be entitled to receive any payment with respect thereto. Holders of securities would be entitled to participate ratably with holders of our unsecured indebtedness, and potentially with all of our other general creditors, in our remaining assets. As a result, the holders of debt securities may recover proportionally less than holders of secured indebtedness.
Under the Indenture, the change of control events that would require us to repurchase the securities are subject to a number of significant limitations, and certain change of control events that affect the market price of the securities may not give rise to any obligation to repurchase the securities.
Unless otherwise indicated in the applicable prospectus supplement, we will be required under the Indenture to make an offer to repurchase the securities upon the occurrence of a “change of control triggering event,” the definitions of which will be limited in scope and will not include all change of control events that might affect the market value of the securities. In particular, we are required to repurchase a series of securities upon certain change of control events only if the ratings of such series of securities are lowered below investment grade during the relevant “trigger period.” As a result, our obligation to repurchase securities upon the occurrence of a change of control is limited and may not preserve the value of the securities in the event of a highly leveraged transaction, reorganization, merger or similar transaction.
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