Long-term Debt

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2011

Long-term Debt [Abstract]

Long-term Debt

2. Long-term Debt

Long-term debt consists of our senior credit facility and 10  ¹/2% senior secured second lien notes due 2015 (the “Notes”) as follows (in thousands):

		0000000000		0000000000
	September 30, 2011		December 31, 2010
Long-term debt including current portion:
Senior credit facility	$	464,174	$	467,791
10 1/ 2% senior secured second lien notes at liquidation value		365,000		365,000
Total long-term debt including current portion at liquidation value		829,174		832,791
Less unamortized discount on 10 1/2% senior secured second lien notes		(5,073)		(6,087)
Total long-term debt at recorded value	$	824,101	$	826,704
Borrowing availability under our senior credit facility		40,000		40,000

Our senior credit facility consists of a revolving loan facility and term loans. Excluding accrued interest, the amount outstanding under our senior credit facility as of September 30, 2011 and December 31, 2010 was comprised solely of term loan balances of $464.2 million and $467.8 million, respectively. The revolving loan facility did not have an outstanding balance as of September 30, 2011 or December 31, 2010. The maximum borrowing capacity of $40.0 million as of September 30, 2011 and December 31, 2010 is limited by our required compliance with certain restrictive covenants, including a first lien net leverage ratio covenant. As of September 30, 2011 and December 31, 2010, we were in compliance with all covenants required under our debt obligations.

As of September 30, 2011 and December 31, 2010, we had $365.0 million of Notes outstanding.

As of September 30, 2011 and December 31, 2010, the interest rate on the balance outstanding under the senior credit facility was 3.7% and 4.5%, respectively. As of September 30, 2011 and December 31, 2010, the coupon interest rate and the yield on the Notes were 10.5% and 11.0%, respectively. The yield on the Notes exceeds the coupon interest rate because the Notes were issued with “original issue discount”.

The collateral for our debt obligations consists of substantially all of our and our subsidiaries’ assets. In addition, our subsidiaries are joint and several guarantors of these obligations and our ownership interests in our subsidiaries are pledged to collateralize the obligations.

Amendment to Senior Credit Facility

Effective June 30, 2011, we entered into the third amendment to our senior credit facility which provides for, among other things, our ability to use a portion of the proceeds from a potential issuance by us of certain capital stock and/or debt securities to redeem the outstanding shares of our Series D Perpetual Preferred Stock (including accrued dividends and any premiums), provided that we repay the term loans outstanding under the senior credit facility on not less than a dollar for dollar basis by the amount used to redeem such preferred stock, except to the extent that the redemption of the Series D Perpetual Preferred Stock is effectuated with the proceeds of an issuance of common equity securities. Any such preferred stock redemption must be completed within 40 days of the issuance of such securities or the proceeds therefrom will be required to be used to repay additional amounts of the loans outstanding under the senior credit facility. We completed the third amendment to our senior credit facility at a cost of approximately $0.5 million, which was funded from cash on hand. These costs were primarily capitalized as deferred financing costs and we are amortizing them over the term of our senior credit facility.