Oh, I don't know but I can speculate.
First, you'd hope they have profits, or they wouldn't be able to pay the bondholders? The question is, where do the company's future profits go?
I guess you could think of it as being a bit more like a bank? A bank provides a service to its depositors, holding their money and paying a little interest. A company does something similar for its bondholders, at higher risk than bank deposits but lower than stocks.
The company is for some reason deciding it wants to expand into the "provide a service to bondholders" business. It's a bit weird to talk about "providing bondholder value" but that's basically what they're doing, by staying in business, paying the interest, and rolling over the bonds. Stockholders get a one-time windfall when a company expands into this business, as the company for whatever reason doesn't actually need the cash.
It's a bit weird to borrow money from bondholders for this purpose, but you could think of it as doing things out of order. Instead of borrowing money to grow the business, they grow the business first, then borrow the money. Less risky that way!
You might also think of it this way: maybe some investors are looking for less risky investments. They would rather have bonds than stocks. Companies are responding to that.
Maybe we should be worried about companies being more bank-like? Life is uncertain. Why are they making guarantees they might not be able to keep? We've been this way before with banks chopping up mortgages to make "safe" investments.