Cloud 9fin

US leveraged buyout volumes are slowly starting to improve, with the likes of Apollo, Thoma Bravo, CD&R and TowerBrook making moves. This comes after a long period where buyers and sellers struggled to find common ground in valuations and could bring a welcome shot of new debt issuance for investors that are eager to lend. So what changed? And is this improvement in deal activity significant e...

The credit markets are constantly evolving, and CLOs are no exception. As hopeful new managers enter, less successful platforms fall away. This keeps the market healthy, says Napier Park’ s global head of the CLO management platform Serhan Secmen. But what makes a manager successful? In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin , Serhan joins our own global head of CLOs, Tanvi Gupta , in the inaugural epi...

Tumultuous waves have long beset Thames Water , but last week a massive one hit the imperiled UK utility company head on as Moody's cut its opco debt to junk. With too much debt, poor quality assets from decades of under investment, and a plan the water regulator rejected, Thames's opco downgrade was widely expected across the market. But what happens next? To answer that question, 9fin editor Dan...

For the vendors and firms owed money by a bankrupt company, the primary motivation to join an Unsecured Creditors’ Committee is often simple: maximize economic recoveries. But Doctor Dennis Deruelle had other priorities. Listen as Dennis recounts the struggles faced by hospital staff and patients from his viewpoint as the Executive Medical Director for Hospital Medicine and Critical Care during th...

In the realm of private credit, thinking local is a must. Which means knowing your place can determine whether an investment will succeed or generate losses. For this week's episode of Cloud 9fin , senior reporter Bianca Boorer sits down with Hayfin 's Carlos Pla. They talk about the nuance of private credit special situations in Europe, how it differs from the US market and what it takes to succe...

Shout if you’ve heard this one before: a CPA and an MD walk into a bar. The MD says, “Plz Fix,” and the CPA says, “sure, but I’ll need three forms of ID and an engagement letter first.” In response to which the MD, of course, literally explodes. Not heard it? Well you may soon, because private equity ownership of auditing firms is causing concern in the wake of deals like the New Mountain Capital...

Overheard in the Southern District of Texas: Don’t be a meanie! Ok, we may be paraphrasing here a bit, but taking the decision in Robertshaw and the anticipated Incora decision together, the court may be signaling that lenders need to stop being so Incora-gible and tone down the violence. In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, reporter Max Reyes digs into these decisions with legal analysts Jane Ko...

When it emerged from bankruptcy in 2021, Hertz was something of a success story. Everyone involved who wasn’t named Carl Icahn made out OK. But here it is again, challenged by an overstep into EVs and loaded up with pricey new debt. In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin , global head of distressed and restructuring Max Frumes breaks it all down with distressed credit analyst Larry Feldman and senio...

Last week at the Fed, nothing happened. Usually when nothing happens, we don’t report on it, but in this case it got us thinking. What are the consequences of higher-for-longer? Did the Open Markets Committee leave themselves a trapdoor to push through a series of rate cuts across the back half of the year? And what’s up with rates in Europe and the UK? In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin , edito...

Lawyers might finally be done filing large, complex Chapter 11s in the Eastern District of Virginia. In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin , our very own global head of distressed and restructuring Max Frumes digs into the shocking denial of Vinson & Elkins ’ retention application in the Enviva proceedings with distressed legal analyst Jane Komsky. Read Jane’s full write-up for more on why she...

In recent years, the term ‘lender-on-lender violence’ has become a popular way to refer to deals that are more politely known as ‘liability management exercises’. Both terms are euphemistic — so what are we actually talking about here? And what happens when these often quite bruising battles between companies, their sponsors and their lenders, take place in the (supposedly) quieter and more gentee...

At what point does a trend become a megatrend?  In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, our very own ABS editor Owen Sanderson is joined by Matthew Moniot, co-head of credit risk sharing at Man Group , in a conversation about Significant Risk Transfers (SRTs) and their potential to reshape the US credit markets.  Have any questions or feedback for us? We’d love to hear from you at podcast@9fin.com. 

It’s happening! Voters in the UK will head to the polls in just over a month, and most polls forecast a resounding victory for Keir Starmer and the Labour Party. Notwithstanding multiple reshuffles under the Conservatives over recent years, this would be the first proper regime change in the UK since 2010. So it’s kind of a big deal — and while the odds of a Tory defeat are so strong that some of...

Enterprise software is a sector with a lot to love if you’re a private credit investor: long-term contracts and sticky customers. But how will AI impact software companies? And what is the growth outlook in the sector, which has had a tough time over recent years? In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin , private credit reporter Peter Benson and Oliver Thym, a partner on Thoma Bravo ’s private credit...

From a colony of bats plaguing one of its hospitals in Florida to an alleged connection to money laundering in Malta , Steward Health ‘s descent into bankruptcy is anything but ordinary. In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin , global head of distressed debt reporting Max Frumes and deputy distressed editor Rachel Butt walk through the lead-up to Steward’s bankruptcy filing and the many challenges t...

The current interest rate environment is driving a rise in downgrades, special situations and liability management exercises. But how to know which of the increasing number of stressed and distressed credits are worth adding to — or keeping in — the portfolio? In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin , senior reporter Bianca Boorer sits down with Rob Fawn, a portfolio manager in the European leveraged...

Finance is about money, obviously, but it’s also about narratives. That’s especially true in the world of activist investing and proxy battles, and in the high-stakes arena of distressed debt. In an age where news travels faster — and through more channels — than ever before, how do companies and investors manage their messaging? For this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, our global head of distressed...

The SBTi’s sudden change in stance on the use of carbon credits came as a shock in the world of sustainable finance last week. In this episode, our hosts Sammy Cole and Oliver Wise, unpack the latest events and talk to Nawar Alsaadi, the CEO and founder of Kanata Advisors, a sustainable fintech advisory firm based in Toronto, to get his take on the decision. We’ll take a closer look at the uproar...

The end of cheap borrowing is showing its true colors — and for Intrum it’s a deep shade of red as the Swedish debt collector faces its own credit crisis. Following our deep dive into Altice last week, 9fin analyst Jennifer Munnings, distressed debt reporter Will Macadam and senior legal consultant Freddie Doust decipher the writing on the wall as Intrum mulls its restructuring options. Their disc...

What do you get when a builder basket just keeps building, and building and building? You get a whole basketful of lenders caught off-guard by the massive amount of capacity that Altice France has to designate its subsidiaries as unrestricted, that’s what. In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, editor Dan Alderson, senior legal consultants Chris Osbourne and Freddie Doust, and distressed credit ana...

The question on everyone’s lips these days seems to be: are you going BSL, or are you going direct? But when private equity sponsors are building out their portfolio companies’ capital structures, their first concern is often whether the instruments they’re employing are a fit for the business at hand. In this week’s Cloud 9fin episode, 9fin senior reporter Bianca Boorer sits down with David Lelan...

The Ozempic effect is coming for more than just your wardrobe!  Last week, 9fin reported that a group of lenders to Weight Watchers parent WW International organized with law firm Gibson Dunn as the company loses subscribers to weight loss drugs.  On a somewhat related note, 9fin also reported that Herbalife is facing challenges of its own after a bad set of earnings. What use are health shakes wh...

European bond investors: your restricted payment builder baskets are under threat! But also, you’re probably better protected against being J.Screwed than you were in the past. Those are just two insights from 9fin ’s European High Yield Bonds Covenants Report , which provides a deep dive on the state of high yield bond covenants, based on documentation from last year. In this week’s episode of Cl...

Everybody knows that finance is a male-dominated industry, and there are plenty of initiatives to change that. But when you look at the numbers, it can be quite staggering to realize that, for example, just one in 10 senior portfolio managers in private credit is a woman. For this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, we’re celebrating International Women’s Day by examining how far the industry has come i...

9fin sits down with Chris Schubert, executive director in special situations at Alcentra, to talk about his expectations for the distressed market this year.  We take a look back at restructurings he’s been involved in including Ideal Standard and lessons he’s learned from these cases.  Schubert also goes into challenges posed by whitelists and the nuances of the German distressed market.