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 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.

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 report.

To learn more about our private credit data platform and how to access Elijah’s report, email [email protected]. And as always, if you have any feedback on this episode or any other, send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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 agreements to a US Supreme Court case that pitted an apparel supplier against the NFL, and look into whether co-op agreements could be considered a Sherman Act violation.

For more detail on this topic, read Jane's analysis and our follow-up Default Notice newsletter on 9fin.com. If you have any feedback for us about this episode, or requests to get involved in the podcast, email us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.

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’re being used by the industry, and whether they’re likely to become a passing trend or an emerging staple.

If you have any feedback for us, send us a note at [email protected].

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, leading to concerns about their broader impact on the economy.

The growing number of zombie companies contributes to the misallocation of resources, disinflation, and reduced productivity. Although zombie companies are inefficient, they continue operating for years due to financial and structural support.

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, distressed debt reporter Max Reyes sits down with Dr. Edward Altman, professor emeritus at the NYU Stern School of Business and famous for developing the Altman Z-Score, to talk about what defines zombie companies, their prevalence and the negative effects they have on the economy.