American Media Inc., publisher of the National Enquirer, Star and OK!, recently restructured its debt — but Standard & Poor’s is not too impressed. The ratings agency downgraded AMI debt into the default category.

AMI’s long-term debt is now rated “selective default” from its previous high junk bond rating of CCC+, S&P said last week.

The company has about $412 million in long-term debt, and another $19 million on its revolver.

It recently flipped $58.9 million in first-lien notes at 11.5 percent interest due in 2017 to 7 percent second-lien notes due in 2020. With the exchange the company issued about $83.5 million of additional second-lien notes to equity holders.

“We view this transaction as a distressed exchange, which we view as tantamount to default, because the first-lien notes mature in 2017 and the company has not shown an ability to refinance,” S&P wrote in a report.

“Additionally, the first -lien noteholders received less than what was promised on the original securities,” S&P added.

The move leaves the company with $213 million in first-lien notes payable to bondholders including Allianz Capital and Leon Cooperman’s Omega Advisors and $190 million in second lien notes.

Chris Polimeni, the chief financial officer of AMI, said that “all of our lenders supported this in a big way.”

He added that 98.5 percent of the bondholders supported the recent swap, as did its major bankers, JPMorgan Chase and Credit Suisse.