A record breaking year comes to an end. What could possibly come next? How about another?

In this week's episode of Cloud 9fin, Tanvi Gupta, global head of CLOs at 9fin, talks with Pratik Gupta, head of CLO and RMBS research at Bank of America, to discuss the outlook for 2025. They talk about ETFs, performance across the CLO capital structure, LMEs, co-op agreements, HY bond buckets and why 2025 might match the record breaking levels of issuance we've seen in 2024.

Have any feedback on the episode? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

Who is more invested in a breakfast of eggs and bacon — a chicken or a pig? And what does this have to do with leveraged finance?

Find out in this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin as global head of distressed debt and restructuring Max Frumes talks with Mike Harmon about his forthcoming book The Financial Restructuring Tool Set: How to Fix Your Broken Balance Sheet. They talk about the various ways that a company can restructure in and out of court, the evolution of the distressed debt playbook, and what restructuring has in common with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Mike Harmon is a lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, managing partner of Gaviota Advisors, LLC who spent 21 years in the special situations and global principal groups at Oaktree Capital Management.

Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

After a great run co-founding and helping to build up the European Leveraged Finance Association, Sabrina Fox is putting ELFA on the shelf to focus on her work at Fox Legal Training and Good Girl to Goddess.

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, ESG analyst Jennifer Munnings sits down with Sabrina to explore how ELFA has shaped buyside engagement and elevated standards in credit markets. From the rise of J.Crew blockers and their impact on covenant protections to ELFA’s efforts to foster transparency and innovation in ESG practices, Sabrina offers a front-row perspective on the evolving landscape of leveraged finance. They also discuss the challenges of balancing incumbent flexibility with investor safeguards and what lies ahead for the industry as Sabrina embarks on her next chapter.

Have any feedback on this episode? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

Are you a business owner and now looking to retire? Not to worry, because as private equity sponsors fund that move to Florida, their acquisitions are made possible by the private credit firms which have cultivated a lower middle market lending strategy.

But lower middle market lending is, of course, not without its challenges. Intensifying competition from firms honing in on the space and a complicated macroeconomic picture have pushed pricing down to levels last seen in the giddy days of 2021.

In the latest episode of Cloud 9fin Michelle Handy, chief investment officer of First Eagle Alternative Credit’s Direct Lending business, joins 9fin senior reporter Shubham Saharan to talk about that corner of the private credit world.

They unpack the opportunities and obstacles in lower middle market lending, the benefits of having a large existing portfolio, while also touching on the growing asset-based lending market (not to be confused with asset-backed lending!).

For feedback on the podcast, or to learn how to get involved, send a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

More and more, the lines are blurring between our private credit and distressed coverage.

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke mines the reportage of Bianca Boorer, senior distressed debt reporter, and Shubham Saharan, senior private credit reporter.

They talk about the challenge Lycra’s stakeholders face in navigating the company’s balance sheet, and why the company is considering a private credit option, even if it wouldn’t provide it with all the liquidity — or should we say elasticity — it needs to tackle its entire capital stack. 

Do listen in to find out why private credit has the leg(ging) up on the competition!

Follow all of 9fin’s coverage of the Lycra situation here. If you have any feedback for us, send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

Not all that glitters is gold. And not everyone agrees that the recent era for private credit should be called “the golden age.”

In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, produced in partnership with Arena Investors, senior private credit reporter Peter Benson sits down with Arena co-founding CEO and CIO Dan Zwirn to talk through his latest white paper. He takes a contrarian look at the direct lending space, and considers whether this high-rate environment will turn out to be as fruitful for late adopters as the hype would lead one to believe.

Have any feedback for us? Please send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Private credit in both the US and Europe has faced a great deal of pressure from bank lenders in 2024. But despite a slow start, the asset class is holding its ground on a year-to-date basis.

In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke digs into the data with analysts Devin McGinley and Elijah Jackson. They chat through the trends, diving into their respective Q3 2024 private credit reports. You can read both reports here and here.

To learn more about 9fin’s private credit reports, send a note to the team at [email protected]. For feedback on the podcast, or to learn how to get involved, send a note to [email protected].

Thanks for listening!

A majority of American voters have embraced Donald Trump’s message, and a lot of things are about to change. What does his resounding victory in this week’s Presidential election mean for debt capital markets?

It’s a little early to give a comprehensive answer, but in this special edition of Cloud 9fin we’ve done our best to touch on some of the big issues. Tune in to hear Will Caiger-Smith and Sasha Padbidri break down the implications in a short but sweet 10 minutes.

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 episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit editor David Brooke sits down with private credit reporter Peter Benson for a whistle stop tour through NAV — or Net Asset Value — loan structures. Check out Peter’s recent article on NAV structures here, and find all of the latest private credit coverage on 9fin.com.

Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected].

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, specifically, are estimated by published reports to be around $50bn each, ranking them among the costliest disasters in recent history.

In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin hosted by leveraged finance editor David Bell, senior reporter Sasha Padbidri talks to Karen Clark, a Nobel Prize-winning pioneer in the catastrophe modeling space. Clark was also the subject of Michael Lewis’ 2007 article In Nature’s Casino for The New York Times Magazine, which examines the topic of catastrophe modeling in great detail.

Together, they discuss how the technology of catastrophe modeling has advanced since the 1980s and why understanding these risks are critical for company executives and insurers as natural disasters continue to reshape the financial landscape.