Orange County

‘D’ for Default: Investors have agreed to wait another year to collect the $800 million that bankrupt Orange County owes on its bonds, but the nation’s major credit-rating agency doesn’t think much of the so-called rollover agreement. Standard & Poor’s Corp. is expected to lower the boom on the county’s short-term bond rating today, when $600 million of the bonds were originally due. The rating agency says it considers the county in default because its deal to repay bond investors next year doesn’t stipulate how it will come up with the money. “Unless there is a miracle, they will go to ‘D’ for default,” an S&P; executive said. Rating agencies said the rollover makes this the third-largest municipal bond default in the nation’s history, behind the Washington Public Power Supply System default on $2.25 billion of bonds in 1983 and the New York City bond default in 1975.