Cloud 9fin

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...

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,...

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...

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 highligh...

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 incr...

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 mer...

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 repor...

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 agre...

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’...

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...

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 b...

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...

Hedge funds are making a bold push into the private credit arena, lured by the promise of higher returns. However, new territory is not without its hurdles, as these funds navigate a landscape already populated by established players. In this episode of Cloud 9fin private credit reporter Peter Benson and senior private credit reporter Shubham Saharan discuss the complexities of this market shift a...

Private credit fundraising has been going through an inflection point in recent years, as high interest rates and geopolitical risk increasingly drive LPs to only the most established fund managers. The market shift has many wondering, is the sector leaving its “Golden Age” and entering its "Silver Fox era”? Despite these challenges, investors are finding new opportunities as they adapt to the cha...

The Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision on 27 June ruled that a bankruptcy court does not have the statutory authority to provide non-consensual third party releases. Such releases had been a crucial part of the Purdue Pharma Chapter 11 plan, among others, where the bankruptcy system was being employed to shield non-debtors from litigation without full creditor consent. The decision coincided with the...

Not all liability management deals are "violent"; in fact the majority of deals in 2024 have allowed for participation by non ad hoc group lenders who in the past had been entirely cut out of the economics of non pro rata priming transactions. For this week's episode of Cloud 9fin, global head of distressed and restructuring Max Frumes, distressed legal analyst Jane Komsky, and private credit repo...

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...