distressed-equities

So Ancona and Bresman have laid out a framework for doing it another way. In X-Teams— their name for groups that get it right—the authors dive into the nitty-gritty details of engineering a better team: how to reach outward, build a support structure, be more flexible and navigate a corporate culture that might be less than enthusiastic about border crossing. They use examples from teams at Microsoft, Motorola, Toyota and Southwest Airlines and describe in depth how a team at Merrill Lynch created {a distressed-equities desk that spanned debt and equity} —something that had never been done before—one of some hundred X-team projects Ancona has helped foster.

I don't quite understand this term of "distressed-equities" in the curly brackets.

By the way can the administrator to give back my old name of "fansy"?