Cloud 9fin

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.

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 career, emphasizing the importance of credit selection and AlbaCore’s mission to adapt to market demands.

Have any feedback for us? Send us an email at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

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 highlights a novel approach asset stripping. 

Read more about the mechanics of this deal in Swapnil’s analysis on 9fin.com. To get involved in the podcast, drop us a line at [email protected].

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 increasing appetite for CLOs and how this poses its own challenges, as well as how to compete with private credit fundraising. This is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

If you have any feedback or would like to get involved in the CLO series on Cloud 9fin, reach out to us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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 merger's antitrust prospects.

Find Dan’s latest piece on the path to regulatory approval for the DISH-DIRECTV merger here, and find Kartik’s latest analysis on the deal here. Another worthy read is this piece by our distressed team, co-authored by William, Kartik and our deputy distressed editor Rachel Butt.

If you have any feedback for the team or would like to learn more about how to get involved, send a note to [email protected]. Thanks for listening.