Episoder
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A record breaking year comes to an end. What could possibly come next? How about another?
In this week's episode of Cloud 9fin, Tanvi Gupta, global head of CLOs at 9fin, talks with Pratik Gupta, head of CLO and RMBS research at Bank of America, to discuss the outlook for 2025. They talk about ETFs, performance across the CLO capital structure, LMEs, co-op agreements, HY bond buckets and why 2025 might match the record breaking levels of issuance we've seen in 2024.
Have any feedback on the episode? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening. -
Who is more invested in a breakfast of eggs and bacon — a chicken or a pig? And what does this have to do with leveraged finance?
Find out in this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin as global head of distressed debt and restructuring Max Frumes talks with Mike Harmon about his forthcoming book The Financial Restructuring Tool Set: How to Fix Your Broken Balance Sheet. They talk about the various ways that a company can restructure in and out of court, the evolution of the distressed debt playbook, and what restructuring has in common with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Mike Harmon is a lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, managing partner of Gaviota Advisors, LLC who spent 21 years in the special situations and global principal groups at Oaktree Capital Management.
Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening. -
Mangler du episoder?
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After a great run co-founding and helping to build up the European Leveraged Finance Association, Sabrina Fox is putting ELFA on the shelf to focus on her work at Fox Legal Training and Good Girl to Goddess.
In this episode of Cloud 9fin, ESG analyst Jennifer Munnings sits down with Sabrina to explore how ELFA has shaped buyside engagement and elevated standards in credit markets. From the rise of J.Crew blockers and their impact on covenant protections to ELFA’s efforts to foster transparency and innovation in ESG practices, Sabrina offers a front-row perspective on the evolving landscape of leveraged finance. They also discuss the challenges of balancing incumbent flexibility with investor safeguards and what lies ahead for the industry as Sabrina embarks on her next chapter.
Have any feedback on this episode? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening. -
Are you a business owner and now looking to retire? Not to worry, because as private equity sponsors fund that move to Florida, their acquisitions are made possible by the private credit firms which have cultivated a lower middle market lending strategy.
But lower middle market lending is, of course, not without its challenges. Intensifying competition from firms honing in on the space and a complicated macroeconomic picture have pushed pricing down to levels last seen in the giddy days of 2021.
In the latest episode of Cloud 9fin Michelle Handy, chief investment officer of First Eagle Alternative Credit’s Direct Lending business, joins 9fin senior reporter Shubham Saharan to talk about that corner of the private credit world.
They unpack the opportunities and obstacles in lower middle market lending, the benefits of having a large existing portfolio, while also touching on the growing asset-based lending market (not to be confused with asset-backed lending!).
For feedback on the podcast, or to learn how to get involved, send a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening! -
More and more, the lines are blurring between our private credit and distressed coverage.
In this episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke mines the reportage of Bianca Boorer, senior distressed debt reporter, and Shubham Saharan, senior private credit reporter.
They talk about the challenge Lycra’s stakeholders face in navigating the company’s balance sheet, and why the company is considering a private credit option, even if it wouldn’t provide it with all the liquidity — or should we say elasticity — it needs to tackle its entire capital stack.
Do listen in to find out why private credit has the leg(ging) up on the competition!
Follow all of 9fin’s coverage of the Lycra situation here. If you have any feedback for us, send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.
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Not all that glitters is gold. And not everyone agrees that the recent era for private credit should be called “the golden age.”
In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, produced in partnership with Arena Investors, senior private credit reporter Peter Benson sits down with Arena co-founding CEO and CIO Dan Zwirn to talk through his latest white paper. He takes a contrarian look at the direct lending space, and considers whether this high-rate environment will turn out to be as fruitful for late adopters as the hype would lead one to believe.
Have any feedback for us? Please send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening! -
Private credit in both the US and Europe has faced a great deal of pressure from bank lenders in 2024. But despite a slow start, the asset class is holding its ground on a year-to-date basis.
In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke digs into the data with analysts Devin McGinley and Elijah Jackson. They chat through the trends, diving into their respective Q3 2024 private credit reports. You can read both reports here and here.
To learn more about 9fin’s private credit reports, send a note to the team at [email protected]. For feedback on the podcast, or to learn how to get involved, send a note to [email protected].
Thanks for listening! -
A majority of American voters have embraced Donald Trump’s message, and a lot of things are about to change. What does his resounding victory in this week’s Presidential election mean for debt capital markets?
It’s a little early to give a comprehensive answer, but in this special edition of Cloud 9fin we’ve done our best to touch on some of the big issues. Tune in to hear Will Caiger-Smith and Sasha Padbidri break down the implications in a short but sweet 10 minutes.
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All eyes are on the results of the US election results today, and soon, they’ll turn back to the Federal Reserve. Hinging on whether the Fed decides to continue rate cutting at its next meeting — and how deeply — a flood of M&A could hit the market. In the meantime, though, funds have been forced to take extraordinary measures to make their way through the muddle in the middle.
In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke sits down with private credit reporter Peter Benson for a whistle stop tour through NAV — or Net Asset Value — loan structures. Check out Peter’s recent article on NAV structures here, and find all of the latest private credit coverage on 9fin.com.
Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected]. -
Batten down the hatches, because the cost of environmental damage continues to rise.
Hurricanes and natural disasters pose a threat to leveraged credits. This year’s Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June to November, has caused significant physical and financial damage to borrowers and civilians located mainly in the southeastern part of the US. Damages from hurricanes Helene and Milton, specifically, are estimated by published reports to be around $50bn each, ranking them among the costliest disasters in recent history.
In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin hosted by leveraged finance editor David Bell, senior reporter Sasha Padbidri talks to Karen Clark, a Nobel Prize-winning pioneer in the catastrophe modeling space. Clark was also the subject of Michael Lewis’ 2007 article In Nature’s Casino for The New York Times Magazine, which examines the topic of catastrophe modeling in great detail.
Together, they discuss how the technology of catastrophe modeling has advanced since the 1980s and why understanding these risks are critical for company executives and insurers as natural disasters continue to reshape the financial landscape.
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Even with competition heating up, the direct lending market is ripe with opportunity.
In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, Fin Strathern interviews Bill Ammons, founding partner and portfolio manager at AlbaCore Capital.
They discuss the evolution of leveraged finance as direct lending develops, and the importance of providing flexibility and optionality. Bill shares insights from his extensive career, emphasizing the importance of credit selection and AlbaCore’s mission to adapt to market demands.
Have any feedback for us? Send us an email at [email protected]. Thanks for listening! -
Every now and then a situation comes around that stretches the limits of possibility. System1 is just such a situation, and private credit investors should take note.
In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, distressed legal analyst Jane Komsky and distressed credit analyst Swapnil Sawant reveal the playbook of SPAC-era darling System1’s unique take on a liability management exercise that highlights a novel approach asset stripping.
Read more about the mechanics of this deal in Swapnil’s analysis on 9fin.com. To get involved in the podcast, drop us a line at [email protected]. -
CLO captive equity funds have emerged as an important part of a manager’s toolkit, affording greater control over CLO issuance patterns. In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, MidOcean Partners’ Jamil Nathoo tells 9fin’s global head of CLOs Tanvi Gupta about the strengths and weaknesses of certain fund structures.
They discuss new frontiers opening up in the Middle East and South America amid increasing appetite for CLOs and how this poses its own challenges, as well as how to compete with private credit fundraising. This is a conversation you won’t want to miss.
If you have any feedback or would like to get involved in the CLO series on Cloud 9fin, reach out to us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.
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Stop me if you’ve heard this one before but what the heck did DISH (Echostar) and DIRECTV just say they were going to do? And will it actually happen this time?
In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, listen in as senior reporter William Hoffman sits down with 9fin credit analysts Kartik Dar and Daniel Stone to untangle the DISH and DIRECTV transactions and debt exchanges and speculate on the merger's antitrust prospects.
Find Dan’s latest piece on the path to regulatory approval for the DISH-DIRECTV merger here, and find Kartik’s latest analysis on the deal here. Another worthy read is this piece by our distressed team, co-authored by William, Kartik and our deputy distressed editor Rachel Butt.
If you have any feedback for the team or would like to learn more about how to get involved, send a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening. -
By nature, private credit is opaque. At least for now. But 9fin’s private credit team is hard at work building a data set that will help shed light on the trends and movements in the direct lending space.
In this bonus episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke invites private credit analyst Elijah Jackson to share his experience in building the inaugural 9fin private credit report.
To learn more about our private credit data platform and how to access Elijah’s report, email [email protected]. And as always, if you have any feedback on this episode or any other, send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.
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Cooperation agreements have taken the LME world by storm, foiling distressed companies' plans to play creditors off of one another to secure a better deal. But are these agreements anti-competitive?
In this week's episode of Cloud 9fin, our global head of distressed and restructuring Max Frumes delves into this quandary with distressed legal analyst Jane Komsky. They compare the use of co-op agreements to a US Supreme Court case that pitted an apparel supplier against the NFL, and look into whether co-op agreements could be considered a Sherman Act violation.
For more detail on this topic, read Jane's analysis and our follow-up Default Notice newsletter on 9fin.com. If you have any feedback for us about this episode, or requests to get involved in the podcast, email us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening. -
One of the strengths of private credit is its flexibility. And who doesn’t love to PIK and choose?
In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, US private credit editor David Brooke asks senior reporter Shubham Saharan to add another contribution to the ever-evolving private credit glossary as they dive into the definition of synthetic PIKs. Listen in to learn about what these instruments are, how they’re being used by the industry, and whether they’re likely to become a passing trend or an emerging staple.
If you have any feedback for us, send us a note at [email protected]. -
Zombie companies are businesses that, despite being insolvent, manage to survive for extended periods. Traditionally, these companies are defined by their inability to cover interest payments, but a more refined definition points to companies with low Z-scores, indicating a high probability of default. Over the past three decades, the prevalence of zombie companies has surged, especially in the US, leading to concerns about their broader impact on the economy.
The growing number of zombie companies contributes to the misallocation of resources, disinflation, and reduced productivity. Although zombie companies are inefficient, they continue operating for years due to financial and structural support.
In this episode of Cloud 9fin, distressed debt reporter Max Reyes sits down with Dr. Edward Altman, professor emeritus at the NYU Stern School of Business and famous for developing the Altman Z-Score, to talk about what defines zombie companies, their prevalence and the negative effects they have on the economy.
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All eyes are on media giant Paramount Global and its $13bn debt stack, amid the threat of a downgrade to junk status. With streaming wars intensifying and cable subscribers slowly converting to Paramount Plus, many are left asking: Is Paramount’s debt heading for a rocky road, or is there still a way back to stability?
Despite its challenges, Paramount holds a strong liquidity position with $2.3 billion in cash and $3.5 billion in undrawn revolver capacity. However, with debt maturing soon and uncertainty surrounding the Skydance acquisition, the stakes are high as Paramount works to balance leverage and boost cash flow amid a shifting media landscape.
For this week's episode of Cloud 9fin, senior reporter William Hoffman and credit analyst Dan Stone explore the drama unfolding at Paramount, the implications of its potential downgrade, and whether other media giants like Warner Bros. Discovery could be next in line.
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Private credit funds are venturing back to their roots, embracing a strategy that blends the old with the new as hybrid deals are back in vogue.
But is this a nostalgic trip down memory lane, or a calculated move with long-term implications?
In this episode of Cloud 9fin, leveraged finance reporter Ryan Daniel and senior private credit reporter Synne Johnsson discuss this trend, the driving forces behind this shift and ponder the future of private credit in this evolving market.
- Se mer
