Cloud 9fin

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.

Who could have imagined that Red Lobster ’s endless shrimp promotion might have unintended financial consequences? Does distress at retailers like Express , Jo-Ann’s and The Children’s Place mean the US consumer is in trouble? Is ‘liability management’ a better term than ‘credit-on-creditor violence’? And why is communications firm C Street starting a new group dedicated to it? We answer all these...

In November 2023, California circumvented the US Securities and Exchange Commission and released two regulations aimed at increasing climate disclosures for US companies. The SEC initially proposed its now twice delayed climate disclosures in 2022, but the regulations are expected to be released early this year. In this Cloud 9fin episode, host Jennifer Munnings sat down with Kristina Wyatt , form...

Repricing deals have flooded the European market over the past few weeks, with many companies taking advantage of lower interest rate forecasts and tighter high yield credit spreads. But is this trend set to last? For this week’s podcast, Alessandro Albano, financial journalist at 9fin , sat down with host Sammy Cole to talk about the repricing wave. We discussed examples of companies that have re...

US leveraged loan borrowers are repricing their debt at a frenetic pace, and it’s starting to hurt — in some credits, they’re testing the base limits of the CLO managers holding their debt. Himani Trivedi, head of structured credit at Nuveen Asset Management , has seen a lot of history in the CLO market, so she’s perfectly placed to put this intense period of repricing in historical context. How a...

Cross-border recognition is where every good restructuring deal hopes to end. Recognition was historically a more clearcut part of a restructuring process, but in a post-Brexit world, with the advent of restructuring plans (in the UK and across Europe), and the rule in Gibbs potentially in doubt, the apple-cart may have been upset. In this week’s podcast, Cloud 9fin sits down with 9fin senior lega...

Loan repricings came thick and fast in the US market this week, with borrowers looking to slash their borrowing costs on more than $30bn of debt — but bonds are also coming back in a big way. Companies such as Hilton and Chobani highlighted the compelling value on offer in the high yield bond market, which could help define the shape of some hefty debt syndications that are waiting in the wings. I...

German medical diagnostics provider Synlab answered investors’ Christmas wishes for another big European LBO deal by coming to market with €1.5bn in bonds and loans in early December. The funding was used to finance UK private equity fund Cinven ’s acquisition of a majority stake in the company. For our first podcast of 2024, Cloud9fin sits down with 9fin Levfin reporter Ryan Daniel and credit ana...

The collapse of wood pellet producer Enviva last month was swift and brutal. The story’s not over yet for all of the company’s investors (for an extremely thorough analysis, check out our distressed team’s deep-dive report ) but it is for at least one of them: Inclusive Capital . Founded just a few short years ago to great fanfare, Jeff Ubben’s much-vaunted ESG activism fund closed its doors aroun...

Looking back on 2023, we’ve seen financial markets tested by ongoing geopolitical upheaval. We sit down with 9fin’s CEO Steven Hunter to take us through the highs and lows of the year as well as our company’s growth story. Also tune in to find out how Steven unwinds in his spare time and what he thinks about pints in New York!