Cloud 9fin

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!

“9fin AI enables our users to find and process the information they need quicker. Speed is essential in financial markets and debt is no exception.” 9fin has been leveraging AI since the company was founded back in 2016, but we’ve recently stepped-up our game. ‘9fin AI’ allows subscribers to ask questions about companies within debt capital markets and receive high quality answers in real time. Fo...

Commercial real estate is in crisis — specifically, office buildings. The pandemic unleashed an unpredictable torrent of changes in how people work and live, and the dramatic rise in interest rates over recent months has broken funding models for many property owners. That’s extremely bad news for a lot of investors in the real estate market, but it also creates opportunities for savvy lenders. On...

German real estate is very in vogue in distressed land. In keeping with that trend, German real estate investment firm Corestate Capital is trying to turn its ill fate around through asset sales after finally completed its debt restructuring three months ago. The restructuring deal took a whole year to push through after a lot of back and forth with its bondholders and shareholders. The deal was i...

On 21 April this year, the High Court sanctioned Adler Group's UK Restructuring Plan, enabling the group to pursue a solvent wind-down of operations and sale of assets over a two-year period. But one group of creditors was pretty peeved by the plan (understatement of the century). In this week's episode of our Cloud 9fin podcast, 9fin  editor Chris Haffenden and restructuring lawyer Freddie Doust...

ESG has had a rocky ride in 2023, so how is the legal sector responding? This week, 9fin ’s Head of ESG, Jack David talks with prominent sustainability-focused lawyers Sukhvir Basran from Cadwalader and Alex Smith from Eversheds about the evolving world of ESG and sustainability from a legal perspective. We cover the US backlash, the ins and outs of sustainability-linked deals and what the future...

Life insurance, on the face of it, is not the most exciting industry. The secondary market for life insurance policies, however, presents the perfect subject for a spooky Halloween special edition of Cloud 9fin . On this week’s episode, Will Caiger-Smith quizzes Sami Vukelj — who explains how and why private credit firms are buying life insurance portfolios, and tackles some of the awkwardness inv...

The new high interest rate environment poses a huge challenge for companies with debt maturing in the next two years. What risks and opportunities do investors see in the current debt market? For this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin Bianca Boorer sits down with Mike Scott, Head of Global High Yield & Credit Opportunities at Man GLG. Scott discusses how Man GLG is navigating this new normal. Scott...

Debt purchasers must soon decide how they plan on addressing upcoming maturity walls, but they are facing scrutiny over their business models. For this week’s episode of our podcast, host Sammy Cole sits down with 9fin ’s Nathan Mitchell and Matthew Hughes to talk through debt purchaser predicaments, their options and predictions for the years ahead. “Our attention has been on three key players –...

Jess Larsen is in the right place at precisely the right time: after a tough period last year, investor interest in private credit is exploding once again, and his placement agency Briarcliffe Partners is perfectly positioned to benefit from this surge in popularity. The denominator effect is easing, and LPs are once again finding room for private credit . The asset class gives investors an attrac...

Carson Block is not an unfamiliar name, at least in the equity markets. He and his short-activism fund Muddy Waters Research have been at the center of many notable trades in recent years — so notable, in fact, that the SEC began investigating him last year. He’s talked publicly about the covert techniques he and his colleagues use to uncover fraud, and about the impacts of short selling on his he...

When JP Morgan priced Ivy Hill XXI in July it marked the bank's entry into middle-market CLO arranging and underlined the expansion of the mid-market CLO industry. That deal also re-sparked the inevitable question of whether now is the right time for private credit CLOs in Europe. For this week’s episode of our podcast, Josie Shillito quizzes Christine Ferris, head of JP Morgan's global CLO primar...

Can banks really compete with the big guns of private credit? Many are trying — but there are multiple constraints holding them back, from regulation all the way through to organizational structure and culture. This is just one of the topics we discussed in our podcast with Eric Muller of Oak Hill Advisors , a seasoned veteran not just of the direct lending market but also of the banking industry....

Lenders tend to feel reassured knowing their docs have a J Crew blocker, but not all J Crew blockers offer the protection they might expect. For this week’s episode of our podcast, Alice Holian and Olivia Mantock cover the ins and outs of J Crew blockers and run through some novel formulations they’ve seen in 2023. Is the ‘Dechra standard’ going to take off? Or will blockers become increasingly li...

It’s been a hot and heavy summer, and the pipeline is looking encouragingly full for next month — especially compared to this time last year. For this week’s episode of the podcast, Will Caiger-Smith and William Hoffman take a tour through the primary calendar and evaluate each deal’s chances for a smooth syndication. Featuring: Worldpay , Vistra , Syneos Health , Simon & Schuster …and many mo...

ESG investing has come under increased scrutiny for its ability to effect change in recent months, following the controversial Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation in Europe and rising political pushback against the movement in the US. For this week’s episode of the podcast, our host Jennifer Munnings sat down with Rupert Davies, a sustainable finance specialist with over eight years of exper...

Casino operator Penn Entertainment is betting that a $2bn partnership with ESPN will supercharge the company’s foray into the online sports wagering market. It could be an expensive gamble: online sportsbooks have been a hotspot of growth in the US gambling industry, but competitors such as DraftKings and FanDuel are already starting to pivot to profitability from a “growth by any means” mentality...