Cloud 9fin

While many European direct lenders are struggling to hit their fundraising targets, Hayfin has just pulled in more than €15bn.On Cloud 9fin, Synne Johnsson speaks with Hayfin's head of direct lending Mark Bickerstaffe about fundraising, deployment and the changing balance of power in European private credit. He explains how investor diversification away from the US has helped Hayfin attract capital.The conversation also examines portfolio resilience, inflation risks and artificial intelligence. Looking ahead, it touches on refinancing challenges around 2028 and 2029 maturities, opportunities in capital solutions and asset-backed lending, and reasons for cautious optimism about deal activity later in 2026.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Over the last decade, household name and beloved yogurt brand Chobani has evolved from a capacity-constrained yogurt producer into a credit market darling.But tighter debt pricing is now prompting some of its longtime lenders to walk way even as they praise the business for its success.In this episode of Cloud 9fin's Syndication Nation, US LevFin reporter David Westenhaver unpacks the interesting backstory behind Chobani with deputy LevFin editor Sasha Padbidri, including its history in the credit market and the impact of the protein-maxxing trend on the business.Since recording this podcast, the company has issued an additional $600m in debt to finance the purchase of a Pennsylvania production facility with an expected $1.2bn price tag.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Javier Milei's privatization push is reopening Argentina's infrastructure to private capital. But turning investor interest into long-term financing hinges on credible contracts, predictable tariffs and stable foreign-exchange rules.In this first episode of a two-part series, 9fin senior credit analyst Marina Varady joins Jimena Vega Olmos, a partner at Beccar Varela, Gonzalo Santamaría, a partner at Marval, and Gustavo Kopyto, a board member at TGN, to assess opportunities across privatizations, concessions and new projects.Oil, gas and mining are top of mind for investors, with export revenues and RIGI protections helping mitigate Argentine risk. The discussion also covers AySA, road concessions and planned high-voltage transmission tenders.Kopyto draws on TGN's experience with frozen peso tariffs and dollar-linked debt to explain why respecting contracts matters. Vega Olmos outlines the return of project finance, where repayment depends on project cash flows, long-term offtake agreements and robust security packages rather than primarily on a sponsor's balance sheet. Santamaría, in turn, highlights opportunities in export-oriented oil, gas and mining projects, while emphasizing the need for regular tariff adjustments and predictable regulation to sustain public utilities.The Vaca Muerta Sur pipeline provides a financing precedent, combining sponsor equity with a bank consortium loan involving JP Morgan, Citi and Santander. The guests discuss how capital markets, sponsor support and multilateral guarantees could fund larger developments, drawing lessons from RenovAr and Genneia. They also examine why regulated utilities require stronger protections against tariff intervention, and why local participation in Transener need not signal foreign investor retreat: domestic investors can demonstrate confidence before international capital follows.Thanks for listening and watching. If you have any feedback on this episode send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Look out for the second episode, which delves deeper into RIGI, among other things, in the near future!

Listen in on a riveting conversation with veteran financial journalist and bestselling author William D. Cohan to discuss his new book, Money to Burn: The Unvarnished Truth About Leon Black, Apollo, and the Rise of a New Wall Street.9fin's Max Frumes tries to understand just how Cohan gets some of the most influential figures in the history of finance and business to open up to him across his eight books.In this latest book, Cohan takes us inside the world of Leon Black and the creation of Apollo Global Management, which today is one of most dominant and pioneering multi-strategy asset managers. Cohan has captured Black's relationships with the other billionaires who ushered Apollo into its era of prominence, Marc Rowan and Josh Harris, as well as the early influence of figures including Michael Milken, and the personal tragedies that shaped some of Wall Street's most powerful financiers.The conversation also touches on Cohan's reporting on Black's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein — including the $158m Black paid Epstein for financial advice — and how one of the world's toughest dealmakers came to enter such an unusual financial arrangement.

In this episode of LME Doomscrolling, 9fin's senior LME lawyer Laurie Tomassian welcomes Bill Derrough, Managing Director and Chairman of the Capital Structure Solutions group at Jefferies.Bill has over three decades of restructuring experience, with a roster of over 600 restructurings completed. What sets his deals apart is a track record of high creditor participation. Over his career, his deals have garnered on average 94% of creditors' support.He brings a new lens to the LME debate, offering a way to use sticks and carrots to get a consensual outcome, not to fuel continued creditor-on-creditor violence. In this episode he walks us through how he avoids the LME pitfalls of what he calls “bad investment banking” that lead to short-term liquidity solutions while creating diminished long-term recoveries. Bill and Laurie speak about how the prevalence of repeat restructurings has impacted creditor behavior and walk through some success stories that have created what Bill likes to call “durable” solutions.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Hemp, hemp, hooray! The cannabis industry rejoiced earlier this year when the Department of Justice officially reclassified state-licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III — placing it in the same category as testosterone, rather than heroin.But the real game-changer for the industry would be expanding Schedule III status to adult-use recreational cannabis, which the DOJ reviewed during formal administrative hearings in July. A broader reclassification would potentially pave the way for more tax relief, as well as additional collateral and financing options for stressed cannabis borrowers.LevFin editor Bill Weisbrod grinds down the situation with deputy LevFin editor Sasha Padbidri in this episode of Cloud 9fin's Syndication Nation.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

The World Cup summer is now a fading memory, but with the Premier League back, Cloud 9fin's Distressed Diaries keeps football in focus while shining a light on the sector's financial difficulties. Football clubs were traditionally bankrolled by wealthy men. Successful businessmen channelled their buccaneering instincts into their favourite sport, splurging wealth they made elsewhere. The latest in this long line, Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder, is set to buy a stake in Liverpool as part of a consortium led by British-Indian millionaire businessman Amit Bhatia.But rising costs, including eye-watering player salaries and transfer fees, has meant that one man's opulence, however fabulous, is not enough to save a struggling business. Not least in an industry as money-guzzling as professional football.As a result, clubs resorted to borrowed money and a great many have struggled to pay that money back.In this episode of Distressed Diaries, host and senior reporter Bianca Boorer and distressed debt reporter Aditya Anand Kumar speak with Owen Ormond, restructuring partner at Ward Hadaway about the rise of distress in football clubs in Europe, the extent to which regulation can control club owners' profligacy and the role of alternative types of credit.

A New York state judge is preparing to hear a trial between Black Diamond Capital Management and Bank of America, the result of which could provide a better understanding of how lender DQ lists are enforced. In this episode of Cloud 9fin, Jane Komsky unpacks the case and the potential impacts on the broader market with Polsinelli restructuring chair David Karp and 9fin reporter Tom Quinn.The discussion examines the three questions now facing the court: whether Bank of America should have settled a trade with an affiliate to a disqualified lender, whether it satisfied a requirement to provide an economic equivalent when the trade failed, and whether it acted as soon as practicable to find a solution.Karp argues that any ruling is likely to focus on Bank of America's post-trade conduct rather than overturn the core loan-market principle that a trade is a trade. The case also highlights the value of lender-of-record status, opaque DQ lists, voting rights and the risk to desks that leave trades unsettled.You can read our original story on the litigation here.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Judge Lopez's Serta ruling lands after Del Monte and American Tire, putting pro rata sharing, sacred rights and LME damages back in the spotlight.Ropes & Gray's Rachel Strickland and Eliza Hollander join 9fin Head of LMEs Jane Komsky to parse what these three cases mean for the future of in-court and out-of-court restructurings.The trio compares Judge Lopez, Judge Kaplan and Judge Goldblatt's approaches to similar pro rata sharing language in very different settings: Serta outside bankruptcy, and Del Monte and American Tire inside Chapter 11, both with DIP fights.Strickland and Hollander examine whether roll-ups, cashless exchanges and DIP subordination should be treated as payments or reductions under legacy credit agreements, and why Fifth Circuit open-market purchase analysis continues to shape the debate. They also dig into ratable-offer mechanics, Serta-style uptiers, excluded lender remedies, par participation damages and the tension between textual contract interpretation and bankruptcy court equity.They also explore whether LME fatigue, litigation costs and the 2027-2028 maturity wall will push market participants towards ratable structures or efficient Chapter 11s.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Daniel Rudnicki Schlumberger, a 30-year JP Morgan veteran, sits down with senior leveraged finance reporter Nicolle Liu to unpack how the bank is exporting its Security and Resiliency Initiative (SRI) from the US to EMEA — mobilizing private capital for the sectors governments now treat as strategic.Schlumberger also discusses:The $1.5trn, 10-year target and the full capital stack behind it: balance-sheet lending, syndicated loans, high yield, equity private placements, IPOs, venture and direct lending, second lien, PIK and hybrid capital;Where the money is going: aerospace and defense, nuclear, wind, solar, grid resiliency, AI, quantum, cyber, rare minerals, shipbuilding, robotics and critical medicines;Deals in focus: Oxford Quantum Circuits' equity private placement, Czechoslovak Group's HY bond and defense IPO, and CoreWeave's debut euro bond;Plus: private equity's push into defense consolidation, the sovereign data center question, government engagement, and how JP Morgan is staffing up its SRI team.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

India's private credit market is moving from IBC-era rescue finance to a broader asset class. Performing credit is hot, but complexity-driven capital remains scarce and potentially higher alpha.InCred Alternatives' Ankur Jain, who is a managing director for private credit strategies, tells 9fin APAC reporter Rajhkumar Shaaw about a market that is still only about $25bn-$30bn in AUM, or 0.6% of GDP, but growing at roughly 25% CAGR.Jain also unpacks India's private credit boom, why global macro has had limited impact on India-focused borrowers, and how domestic funds and wealth-market co-investments are increasingly challenging foreign investors.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

A major theme of the first half of 2026 was Anthropic's Claude Code triggering a software sell-off that is still reshaping private credit, BSL and distressed debt. In the latest episode of Cloud 9fin Dan Mika, Anna Russi and Samantha Stokes unpack the first half of the year and what shocks await in the second half.The team reviews a volatile first half that began with optimism around M&A, Hologic, Electronic Arts and new-money LBO supply, before the software sell-off and Iran war changed the tone. Dan Mika contrasts IG M&A volume with weaker high-yield and leveraged loan activity, while Anna Russi explains how private credit lenders are reassessing software underwriting after Medallia handed keys to lenders. Samantha Stokes discusses distressed credits trading down ahead of 2028 and 2029 maturity walls, with lenders wary of long-dated refis as AI risk remains hard to price.The episode also covers the limited but sector-specific impact of the Iran war on chemicals, building products and airlines, including Tronox, Cornerstone Building Brands and Spirit Airlines. Looking ahead, the team flags private credit liquidity stress, retail redemptions, portfolio sales at managers including Blue Owl, Apollo, FS KKR and New Mountain, rising secondaries activity, Mudrick's LME fund and the risk of higher-for-longer SOFR.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

El Niño is back, and *Cloud 9fin'*s LatAm and CEEMEA editors see credit risks spreading across energy, agriculture and sovereign balance sheets.Deputy LevFin Editor Sasha Padbidri speaks with LatAm Editor Xochitl Herrera and CEEMEA Editor Dan Alderson on how worsening weather shocks are feeding into leveraged credit and emerging market risk.In Colombia, drought could cut hydropower output just as gas production falls, forcing more imports while Canacol works through a Canadian restructuring process. Xochitl also flags Mexico's exposure to Henry Hub through gas imports, Chilean utilities' hydropower upside, and Brazil's soybean and corn vulnerability.Dan breaks down Africa's uneven El Niño effects, from Southern African drought to East African flooding, against a backdrop of food, fuel and fertilizer disruption.Here's a summary of the 9fin articles mentioned in the podcast:Africa vs Godzilla El Niño — Key battle lines for credit in 2026/27Colombia braces for perfect storm as El Niño looms over gas crisisFEMSA, KOF and Alsea may benefit from El Niño effectEl Niño could lift Chile utilities, but less than last timeBrazil climate whiplash could put key credits to the testHouston, we have a solution — How space data centers could be debt's next frontierHurricane Helene hits southeastern US borrowersHurricane Beryl shakes up Texas borrowers$98bn in AI projects disrupted by mounting environmental and labor risksResistance is fertile — Iran war's impact on agriculture and CPIHave any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

When an announcement was made last year that Universal Studios was making a movie about Archie Andrews produced by Hollywood heavyweights, it should have been a victory for one of comics' most enduring franchises. Instead, it triggered a legal war which ties up a Beverly Hills mansion, accusations of threats fit for an “organized crime figure” and a much-awaited movie on the line.With a UCC foreclosure auction set for June 15, the fate of Archie Andrews — and the Archie Comics empire — hangs in the balance.In this episode, 9fin's global head of distressed and LevFin, Max Frumes, sat down with distressed debt reporter Maria Heeter and LME legal analyst Laurie Tomassian, co-authors of a recent investigation into the dispute between lender Raven Capital and Archie Comics co-CEO Jonathan Goldwater to break down how it all unraveled.As a quick shoutout, the episode references and includes short audio clips from the 1969 hit 'Sugar, Sugar' by the fictional bubblegum-pop group, The Archies. The song held the #1 spot on the Billboard Top 100 for eight weeks between October and December 1969. The episode theme song is a tongue-in-cheek homage to The Archies' second studio album, Everything's Archie, created bespoke for this episode by our producer Chase Collum.Clarifications: There's actually no show called “Desperate Mormon Housewives. Instead the popular reality television series was called "The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives". Also, while Archie Comics did once don the wrappers of Topps bubble gum, that was in the 1950s, and the host was almost certainly referring to Bazooka Joe.Have any feedback on this episode? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Bitcoin Depot went from a $600m, publicly-traded business to bankrupt in a matter of months, but the story around the company and other crypto ATM providers has been brewing for years. We happen to have just the guy on staff to break it all down.In this episode of Cloud 9fin, head of bankruptcy Cat Corey talks with senior LevFin reporter Dan Mika about his previous reporting on the crypto ATM industry's history of targeting neighborhoods of color, and how it has become a favorite tool for organized scam groups to separate victims from their cash. The two also talk about what value is left for creditors in a business model where — in the eyes of lawmakers — the societal harm is too great to ignore.Have any questions? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!Stories referenced in this pod:- High-fee crypto ATMs center around low-income parts of Kansas City- How Crypto ATMs in the U.S. Became A Favorite Tool for Scammers- FBI Internet Crime Report 2025

In our latest episode of Syndication Nation, leveraged finance reporter Sunny Oh sits down with Mark Melchiorre, chief investment officer of Forza Investment Group, to discuss how insurance-focused asset managers are helping to finance America's new “Manhattan Project” — the rapid buildout of tech and AI-driven digital infrastructure.Melchiorre discusses his journey through credit markets and the appeal of hybrid capital in a world of growing dispersion. He also talks about the prospects for small modular nuclear reactors, which have garnered interest as power proves to be a key bottleneck in the race to develop new data centers.Check out coverage on leveraged finance and private credit at 9fin.com.Have any feedback on the podcasts? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

It seems that over the past few months, you could sum up the troubles facing private credit with one word: ‘illiquidity.' This is a key tenet of the asset class, and it is often cited among the reasons for private credit's premium. But it also can pose challenges, as seen through record redemption requests from non-traded BDCs and the dilemma of managing the tail end of a fund's life.Two paths to manage those challenges are to raise more money and engage in secondary transactions. So, who better to ask about this moment in private credit than Campbell Lutyen's global head of private credit Jeffrey Griffiths, whose team leads private credit fundraising and secondaries advisory.In this episode of Cloud 9fin's Private Chat series, reporter Tom Quinn checks in with Griffiths to learn about the state of the fundraising market and how secondary transactions are taking shape.Have any feedback? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

Sponsors Bain and Cinven are confident creditors will approve the A&E deal for Arxada, despite opposition from its senior unsecured bondholders. But is that confidence based on sunny optimism?9fin sources say negotiations are ongoing with the SUNs in the background as the deadline to sign up for the deal is today (28 May). The company may look to extend by a day, Cinven partner Christopher Anderson, said on a Q1 26 earnings call yesterday (27 May).The company received over 90% support from its secured creditors last week, Anderson said. However, he did not give an update on the SUN consent threshold, which was a meagre 20% at the deal launch on 13 May.The company needs 75% from each class of creditors to implement the deal through an English scheme of arrangement, which it filed for on 26 May.In this episode of Distressed Diaries, host and senior reporter Bianca Boorer speaks with distressed credit analyst Yusuf Sule and senior legal consultant Luke Viner about the A&E deal, creditor sentiment, what could happen if it goes to court, and how the company might handle the unconsenting SUNs.

In our latest episode of Syndication Nation, US investment grade editor William Hoffman and senior leveraged finance reporter Sunny Oh discuss one of the hottest topics in corporate credit — data center bonds.With billions of dollars of fresh debt hitting both high-grade and high-yield markets to finance the AI infrastructure buildout, investors are being asked to underwrite these project finance-type deals. That's changing the job of the average tech credit analyst, forcing them to exercise a due diligence muscle they don't typically use.For more detail, read Will, Sunny, Yiwen and Dan's latest piece discussing all the nuances and structures that lenders say can make or break one of these bond offerings. Find all our coverage of this new debt class at 9fin.com.Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

In our latest episode of Syndication Nation, US investment grade editor William Hoffman and LevFin senior reporter Sunny Oh break down a complicated mess of debt headed for the primary in the back half of 2026 to fund the combination of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery.The debt stack is expected to include $32bn of existing bonds and $49bn of newly syndicated debt split across asset classes for one of the largest financings of the year.For more detail, read William, Sunny and Will Macadam's latest piece breaking down the colossal $81bn debt stack that will finance this deal. Find all our coverage of the Paramount-WBD deal at 9fin.com.  Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

In this episode of Tranche Talk, *Cloud 9fin'*s CLO series, our global head of CLOs Tanvi Gupta, talks with Anjana Mohan Ravani, head of CLOs and corporate ABS at Redding Ridge Asset Management.They dive into infrastructure CLOs as an exciting growth area and discuss the value proposition for investors looking to underwrite the asset class and what the portfolio composition would look like for these deals.They also delve into the lay of the land in private credit, CLO triple-A investor sentiment and the potential misconceptions about captive equity returns.

In this episode of Syndicated Nation, senior reporter Sunny Oh welcomes Lotfi Karoui, managing director and multi-asset credit strategist for Pimco, to discuss how corporate credit has managed to hold up in the face of geopolitical jitters from the Middle East and worries around the terminal value of software businesses.Karoui also addresses the relative liquidity between direct lending and 144a private placements — often conflated with private credit — the growing dispersion of loan marks in business development vehicles, and questions around whether public bond markets can absorb the flood of data-center-driven issuance spurred by hyperscalers' AI spending.Find all of our coverage on leveraged finance and corporate credit at 9fin.com.Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

In this episode of Jane's LME Addiction, our head of LME coverage Jane Komsky welcomes back Jon Henes, founder and CEO of strategic communications firm C Street to discuss the market's shift from the technical "how-to" of liability management transactions to the fundamental "why."Jon addresses the growing skepticism surrounding the efficacy of these deals, the strategic vision behind C Street's new law firm optimization practice and explores whether the "musical chairs" of elite legal talent is ushering in a new era of consensual capital solutions or simply more complex bankruptcies.Find all our coverage on LMEs at 9fin.com.Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

While the software sell-off was the story of the markets in January, the war between the US and Iran has dominated headlines since the end of February.Back in September, 9fin highlighted a closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a black swan event that would shock the oil markets. When that scenario moved from a remote possibility to an impending risk, the team revisited the situation and outlined the first and second-order impacts of a potential strike — and then the war began.In this episode, 9fin's global head of distressed and LevFin Max Frumes is joined by senior credit analyst Alec Keblish to score the call: what they got right, what this tells us about prevailing market sentiment, and which sectors and individual issuers still contain pockets of volatility or opportunity even if the war were to conclude today.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

The HALO (heavy assets, low obsolescence) trade has gained traction in recent months — particularly in the equity markets — as investors turn away from software businesses amid AI displacement concerns.In this week's episode of Syndication Nation, 9fin's podcast on all things leveraged finance, LevFin reporter David Westenhaver joins US deputy editor Sasha Padbidri in unpacking HALO for our side of the market — which credits are actually benefitting from the trade, and whether this is truly a safe haven for LevFin investors.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Everyone remembers their first car… lead-acid battery supplier bankruptcy.For Max Frumes, 9fin's global head of distressed debt and LevFin, that situation was Exide Technologies. It was the first full cycle of distress, bankruptcy and emergence that he covered in his storied career.And George Schultze, founder and CEO of Schultze Asset Management and author of The Art of Vulture Investing, was an investor during that Exide bankruptcy — the second one, anyway — which taught him some valuable lessons about the importance of being nimble. And, of course, that regulatory factors are more likely to upend distressed investing strategies than support them.In this latest episode of Cloud 9fin, Max and George compare notes, reminisce, and banter about a wide spectrum of distressed companies past and present.Thanks for listening! Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com.

We're kicking off a new podcast series, LME Doomscrolling with Laurie, where 9fin's senior LME lawyer Laurie Tomassian unpacks the impact, risks and incentives of the evolving landscape of liability management exercises.In this inaugural episode, Laurie sits down with Professor Mark Roe and researcher Vasile Rotaru of Harvard Law School to explore their new study which measures how non-pro rata coercive LMEs fare in the long run. They discuss whether LMEs deliver on their promise(s) to sustainably extend a distressed company's runway.Their study, entitled Liability Management's Limited Runway: Corporate Restructuring Today, can be found here.Have any questions? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com.

The recent sell-off in software has sparked a broader reassessment of risk across private credit. But are managers pulling back from risk, or just recalibrating how they price it?In this episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit reporter Anna Russi sits down with Patrick Warren, head of private credit research at MSCI, to unpack what's driving the shift. Drawing on new data, they explore where signs of stress are emerging in software lending and venture debt, how valuation marks could be masking underlying pressures, and what this reveals about risk, performance, and portfolio assumptions in today's market.Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com.

In this episode of Syndication Nation, 9fin's podcast on all things leveraged finance, LevFin reporter David Westenhaver joins US deputy editor Sasha Padbidri to discuss his recent reporting on the wild ride that is Six Flags.Fresh off the heels of a major refinancing, the company offloaded a handful of parks with the goal of deleveraging and focusing investment on a smaller portfolio. But will that be enough to fix the balance sheet? Or, after a decade of missteps, can the amusement park owner's new CEO complete the operational turnaround that investors have sought for years?Follow our reporting on Six Flags at 9fin.com. Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!Footnote: The podcast mentions that Knott's Berry Farm has one of the oldest wooden roller coasters, and that it is 65 years old. The roller coaster referenced was GhostRider, which was built in 1998. The oldest continuously operational wooden roller coaster in the world is Scenic Railway in Luna Park, Melbourne, Australia. The coaster entered operations in 1912.

The Chemicals sector has been suffering from geopolitical tensions since Russian invaded Ukraine four years ago. Now with US President Donald Trump's war in Iran and ongoing worldwide tariffs, volatility is higher than ever.In this episode of Distressed Diaries, our host senior reporter Bianca Boorer sits down with Kunal Shah, the founder and chief investment officer of London-based hedge fund PVTL point, and his partner and member of the investment team Ryan Flew, to discuss how the latest conflict in the Middle East is impacting the sector.What is the sector doing to cope with these challenges? Are European governments doing enough to help? Is UK chemicals producer INEOS out of the woods yet? Where do opportunities lie for distressed investors in this uncertain environment?Tune in to find out!

In this episode of Tranche Talk, Cloud 9fin's CLO series, our global head of CLOs, Tanvi Gupta, talks with Alex Navin, managing director at Performance Trust Capital Partners.They discuss how CLO tranches are trading in this macro backdrop, triple-A liquidity, the influence of vintage on CLO trading, relative value between the US and Europe and how this pocket of volatility is different to anything we've seen since 2020.They also delve into the uncertainty surrounding uncovered double-B MVOCs, the year ahead for CLO equity returns and if there are any equity hedges out there.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

In this episode of Syndication Nation, 9fin's podcast on all things leveraged finance, US LevFin reporter Zoe Han joins US managing editor Bill Weisbrod to discuss her recent reporting on the explosive growth of prediction markets — and whether credit investors are actually all in or just hedging their bets.Are prediction markets a legitimate “truth machine” for LevFin dealmakers? Listen in and draw your own conclusion!Got a hot take or just need to vent after blowing your bonus on a bad bet? Drop us a note at podcast@9fin.com.

This article is part of our new APAC coverage, which will ultimately require a separate subscription to view. For more info on this product, contact subscriptions@9fin.comA big change is coming for the Indian banking system. Starting 1 April, India's central bank will allow domestic banks to fund mergers and acquisitions. It's a change to long-held rules barring lenders from the Indian M&A market, which has so far been dominated by foreign lenders and private credit funds.As Indian banks prepare to lend more to domestic corporates, what does this mean for liquidity, access to funding, and for international lenders that have earned 20% yields so far?9fin's Mumbai-based reporter Rajhkumar Shaaw and Asia editor Richard Macauley answer these questions and walk listeners through the changes in this latest edition of our Cloud 9fin podcast.

The 2017 NYDJ Apparel (nee Not Your Daughter's Jeans) transaction pre-dated Serta as the original “uptier” liability management deal in which lenders holding a majority of the loan amended the waterfall to uptier their existing holdings plus new money, subordinating minority lenders holding the same loans.In a conversation with 9fin's Global Head of Distressed & LevFin Max Frumes, Debevoise's co-head of restructuring Sidney Levinson, who represented the majority lenders in that case, discusses the significance of the deal at the time and the evolution of LME technology ever since. They're joined by Debevoise Partners Scott Selinger and Erica Weisgerber, to of the co-heads of the firm's expanded Liability Management and Special Situations Group.Listen as they explore the commonalities and differences between the NYDJ situation and other well-known restructurings including Serta, J.Crew, Envision, Robertshaw, Trimark, Boardriders, Chewy, Petsmart, Caesars and Xerox.Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for watching and listening!

The collapse of UK mortgage bridge lender Market Financial Solutions has caused chaos across specialist lending. Mortgages are the heart of the securitised products business, and if you can't trust mortgages, what can you rely on?9fin broke the news of double pledging and shortfall in collateral found under its warehouse facilities. The fraud allegations are reminiscent of the recent cases of First Brands and Tricolor in the US that have shaken the private asset-based lending industry.Lots of well-known firms have been caught on the wrong side of MFS — the likes of Barclays, Atlas SP and Castlelake — and it was a close shave for other lenders.In this episode of Distressed Diaries, host and senior reporter Bianca Boorer sits down with 9fin asset-based finance editor Owen Sanderson and Kawai Chung, mortgage market veteran and CEO of UK lender Folk2Folk, to dig into the drama, assess the impact, and consider how the ‘safest' form of lending might have ended up in double-pledging.Most importantly, we look at what could be done differently in future — as borrowers scramble to prove their credentials and lenders look over their books, what's the future of asset-based finance in Europe?

Alternative internet providers swarmed the market during Covid-19 when internet usage became paramount to the shift of everyone suddenly having to work from home during lockdowns.In the UK we have over 100 altnet providers serving 16.4 million homes, according to a 2025 report by the Independent Networks Co-operative Association. This is up from 1.2 million homes in 2019.Investors were quick to support this expansion with cheap funding. Since 2020, the sector has received around £17.4bn of funding, according to advisory firm BDO.However, the ‘build and they will come' model proved far too optimistic as subscriber growth failed to keep pace. Rising interest rates and burdening costs of building the infrastructure also weighed on these broadband providers.We started to see the first signs of distress at the start of the year, with G.Network filing for administration, shortly after its acquisition by distressed debt investor FitzWalter, and creditors moved to take control of Gigaclear.On this episode we sit down with Ben Davies and Stuart Keeping, senior managing directors from financial advisory firm Teneo to delve into the rise and fall of this overcrowded market and providers' response to the challenges.

In this episode of Jane's LME Addiction, our head of LME coverage Jane Komsky brings in Debevoise's newest partners, Rachel Ehrlich Albanese, Sam Newman and Daniel Shamah to discuss the groups enhanced restructuring capabilities. They provide an overview of the LME and in-court landscape, and discuss what the year may bring by way of out-of-court vs in court transactions, sponsor and creditor incentives, and whether liability management is a true fix.Find all our coverage on co-ops and LMEs at 9fin.com.Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

Recent headlines suggest the private credit market is beginning to crumble; however, the asset class isn't a monolith. Look further downmarket, and a far more resilient story emerges.In this episode of Cloud 9fin, US private credit deputy editor Shubham Saharan is joined by Natalie Garcia, Deerpath's head of underwriting, as well as Reed Van Gorden, Deerpath's head of origination, to discuss how the lower middle market is staying steady despite industry headwinds.Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com.

Electronic Arts' proposed $55bn leveraged buyout has upended expectations for its 2031 and 2051 bonds.Instead of pricing in a straightforward 101% change-of-control payout, investors are weighing a tender offer and potential defeasance strategy that could strip covenants and lower the takeout cost. With a potential downgrade looming, bondholders must decide whether they can resist the maneuver or accept a discounted exit.Tune into our latest episode of Cloud 9fin, where senior legal analysts Chris Osborne and Anthony Park unpack this situation with senior credit analyst Steven Price.Follow our reporting of the Electronic Arts takeover at 9fin.com.Have any feedback on this episode? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

When traditional cashflow lending tightens, liquidity doesn't always come from the usual places — sometimes lenders have to break companies into smaller, more financeable pieces.Carving out working capital assets, which involves isolating and valuing receivables and inventory in standalone structures, has emerged as a go-to strategy for borrowers looking to unlock incremental capital without refinancing their entire capital stack.On this episode of Cloud 9fin, Anna Russi speaks with Mitch Soiefer, partner and head of lender finance at SLR Capital Partners, to unpack how working capital assets are being carved out of traditional credit agreements to keep capital flowing, and why these structures tend to show up late in the credit cycle.Have any feedback? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

Anyone who was in the LevFin market in 2022 may remember banks using term loan As to fill the financing gap when rising interest rates disrupted the syndicated loan market. That instrument has made a comeback — except this time, the TLA is no longer a back-up, but a tool to get larger financings done.In this episode, Cloud 9fin deputy LevFin editor Sasha Padbidri sat down with reporter Yiwen Lu and senior reporter Sunny Oh, to discuss the resurgence of the so-called pro-rata market.We broke down the key features of TLAs, how banks use them to differentiate themselves from direct lenders, and the evolving lender base of TLAs. We also discussed how it played out in recent jumbo buyouts, including Hologic.Have any questions? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. You can also check out our feature on TLA here. Thanks for listening!

The leveraged finance markets saw a handful of leveraged buyouts keep pricing on their financing packages tight in January 2026. This was in spite of multiple geopolitical shocks and a sell-off in software loans as vibe coding comes into vogue. To put it all into perspective in this episode of Syndication Nation on Cloud 9fin, US LevFin reporter Dan Mika caught up with AGL Credit Management's Wynne Comer for the view from her seat and what last month's action tells us about the rest of 2026.Have any feedback? Reach out to us at podcast@9fin.com or to Dan at dan.mika@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Ever signed up for a subscription, forgotten about it, and then been charged $100 a year later because it's auto-renewed? Imagine doing the same, except add a few zeroes.In this episode of Cloud 9fin, David Hahn of Davis Polk talks to reporters Tom Quinn and Yiwen Lu about the emergence of snooze/lose clauses in the US credit market: how they work (and crucially, how they work differently to Europe) and their impact on US voting mechanics.Have any feedback? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

All eyes were on Ardagh's CDS after Arini challenged its senior unsecured notes being included in the final list of deliverable obligations to settle contracts.The fund manger argued that, because the bonds had already been marked to be equitised as of the CDS trigger date (when the restructuring was both effective and binding) then their outstanding principal balance should be zero — since they effectively no longer existed. Arini went on to claim that any finding that the bonds still had a non-zero OPB would turn them it into “Schrödinger's Obligations” — existing in two incompatible states at once.Tresidor and Laurion (the latter advised by Milbank) then joined the fight by issuing counter challenges defending the inclusion of the notes.The challenge was eventually rejected by the EMEA Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee in a split vote, with Citi and Pimco dissenting on the decision. That result means SUNs will be included, and so Ardagh's equity valuation will influence the final payout as part of an alternative asset package delivery mechanism to replace the bonds.This hotly contested debate followed the DC having failed to achieve a supermajority ruling on the credit event trigger in the first place, which meant it had to call upon an external review panel of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. The panel of KCs determined the September tigger date, from which CDS contracts must pay out to protection holders, but did not specify how that payout would be handled at auction.In this episode of Distressed Diaries, our host, senior distressed reporter Bianca Boorer, sits down with 9fin editor and our resident CDS expert Dan Alderson to go through the ins and outs of this rejected challenge and what it means for the CDS market as a whole.

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, our global head of Distressed and Levfin, Max Frumes, talks with Latin America editor Xóchitl Herrer about a potential workout of Venezuela's sovereign and sub-sovereign debt, following the US-led extraction of president Nicolás Maduro. They provide an overview of the claims against the South American country, the barriers to a quick restructuring deal, and whether Venezuela will be able to gain access to funding without one.Find all our coverage on Venezuela at 9fin.com.Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com and latam@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

In this episode of Jane's LME Addiction, our head of LME coverage Jane Komsky brings in Josh Brody and Kenneth Reinker from Cleary Gottlieb to discuss the Optimum Communications fka Altice USA antitrust litigation related to cooperation agreements. They provide an overview of the litigation and discuss the likelihood of success, the pitfalls of certain arguments, and whether this litigation is likely to impact how co-ops are formed.Find all our coverage on co-ops and LMEs at 9fin.com.Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

Welcome back, Cloud 9fin listeners! To bring in the new year, 9fin's Asia editor Richard Macauley and US deputy editor Sasha Padbidri kick off our first-ever Asia podcast by unpacking the first successful use of the cross-class cramdown provision in GP APAC's restructuring — a move that established a legal milestone for Singapore's restructuring and insolvency framework.For more details, check out the full story here.Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com, or reach out to rich.macauley@9fin.com to learn more about our APAC offering!

Happy Holidays, Cloud 9fin listeners! We hope you're enjoying some much-needed down time as we prepare for what is to come in 2026. But for those who have a few more odds and ends to tend to, here's one last episode of Syndication Nation, our leveraged finance-focused podcast series to keep us company.In this episode, 9fin senior levfin reporter Dan Mika sits down with Mitch Garfin, co-head of leveraged finance at BlackRock, to discuss the dynamic landscape of high-yield bonds and leveraged loans as we approach the new year.They explore the trends in bond issuance, the shift towards leveraged loans, and the impact of monetary policy on the market. Mitch shares insights on the evolving credit landscape, the role of private credit, and the anticipated challenges and opportunities in the coming year. Tune in for a deep dive into the world of liquid credit and what lies ahead for investors and issuers alike.Have any questions? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Now that 2025 is coming to an end, Distressed Diaries is taking a look back at the highs and lows of the year.Our host, senior distressed reporter Bianca Boorer, sits down with 9fin's managing distressed credit analyst Emmet Mc Nally and senior legal consultant Luke Viner on Dec 3 to talk about the stories that stood out during this pivotal year.We revisited a few ghosts of restructurings that haunted us during the year, including Ardagh, Kloeckner Pentaplast, and Petrofac. We delve into the domino effect another successful appeal of the UK Restructuring Plan had in the courts, how aggressive LMEs have made it trickier to predict recoveries and the evolution of the co-op.Finally, we lay out our expectations for the new year ahead.And if you prefer a long read, we have also explored these themes in our traditional year-end report: European Distressed Year in Review 2025 — Don't look back in anger.

In this episode of Tranche Talk, we welcome back Bank of America's Pratik Gupta who talks with 9fin's Tanvi Gupta on the defining moments of 2025 and what the new year will bring for CLOs.They discuss CLO being the best asset class to sell in a rate cutting cycle and the opportunities to rotate into RMBS AAAs, separating facts from fiction for private credit CLO fears and the demand landscape between Japanese banks, US banks and ETFs.They also delve into CLO equity performance, opportunities for CLO managers in portfolio trading and how CLO managers should differentiate themselves when they're all chasing the same conservative assets.