Cloud 9fin

From a colony of bats plaguing one of its hospitals in Florida to an alleged connection to money laundering in Malta, Steward Health‘s descent into bankruptcy is anything but ordinary.

In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, global head of distressed debt reporting Max Frumes and deputy distressed editor Rachel Butt walk through the lead-up to Steward’s bankruptcy filing and the many challenges that the company, its management and its landlord — and lender — Medical Properties Trust will have to navigate as the situation plays out.

The current interest rate environment is driving a rise in downgrades, special situations and liability management exercises. But how to know which of the increasing number of stressed and distressed credits are worth adding to — or keeping in — the portfolio?

In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, senior reporter Bianca Boorer sits down with Rob Fawn, a portfolio manager in the European leveraged finance team at PGIM Fixed Income, to talk about how this new era is creating new challenges and new opportunities for leveraged finance teams.

Finance is about money, obviously, but it’s also about narratives. That’s especially true in the world of activist investing and proxy battles, and in the high-stakes arena of distressed debt.

In an age where news travels faster — and through more channels — than ever before, how do companies and investors manage their messaging?

For this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, our global head of distressed debt and restructuring, Max Frumes, sat down with Jude Gorman, the co-founder of communications firm Collected Strategies, to find out.

The SBTi’s sudden change in stance on the use of carbon credits came as a shock in the world of sustainable finance last week.

In this episode, our hosts Sammy Cole and Oliver Wise, unpack the latest events and talk to Nawar Alsaadi, the CEO and founder of Kanata Advisors, a sustainable fintech advisory firm based in Toronto, to get his take on the decision.

We’ll take a closer look at the uproar that followed the SBTi’s flip of the script and shine a light on the governance concerns raised by SBTi insiders. We’ll also cover the issues that have plagued carbon markets in recent years and underline why it’s crucial to establish robust and verifiable offset standards.

The end of cheap borrowing is showing its true colors — and for Intrum it’s a deep shade of red as the Swedish debt collector faces its own credit crisis.

Following our deep dive into Altice last week, 9fin analyst Jennifer Munnings, distressed debt reporter Will Macadam and senior legal consultant Freddie Doust decipher the writing on the wall as Intrum mulls its restructuring options.

Their discussion covers the potential for the company to follow Altice’s lead on drop-downs, and the various ramifications if a restructuring happens in the Swedish, English or US courts.

What do you get when a builder basket just keeps building, and building and building? You get a whole basketful of lenders caught off-guard by the massive amount of capacity that Altice France has to designate its subsidiaries as unrestricted, that’s what.

In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, editor Dan Alderson, senior legal consultants Chris Osbourne and Freddie Doust, and distressed credit analyst Nathan Mitchell walk through the knowns and unknowns of Altice.

The discussion covers some of the ways the Altice situation is both familiar and novel, nuances of the French jurisdiction, and the many potential pitfalls that management and investors could face along the path to deleveraging the Altice capital structure.

The question on everyone’s lips these days seems to be: are you going BSL, or are you going direct? But when private equity sponsors are building out their portfolio companies’ capital structures, their first concern is often whether the instruments they’re employing are a fit for the business at hand.

In this week’s Cloud 9fin episode, 9fin senior reporter Bianca Boorer sits down with David Leland, partner and head of capital markets at BC Partners, to discuss the recent refinancing wave, managing portfolio companies through crises, and how to determine the right blend of private credit and leveraged loans for a portfolio company.

The Ozempic effect is coming for more than just your wardrobe! 

Last week, 9fin reported that a group of lenders to Weight Watchers parent WW International organized with law firm Gibson Dunn as the company loses subscribers to weight loss drugs. 

On a somewhat related note, 9fin also reported that Herbalife is facing challenges of its own after a bad set of earnings. What use are health shakes when you can take a pill to slim down? 

Listen as our US deputy distressed editor Rachel Butt and senior reporter William Hoffman talk about these stories, and how Oprah Winfrey is at the center of it all. 

European bond investors: your restricted payment builder baskets are under threat! But also, you’re probably better protected against being J.Screwed than you were in the past.

Those are just two insights from 9fin’s European High Yield Bonds Covenants Report, which provides a deep dive on the state of high yield bond covenants, based on documentation from last year.

In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, our host Jennifer Munnings digs into the report’s findings with our senior legal consultant Chris Osborne, who co-authored the report with Alice Holian.

They also discuss our recent piece about EG Group’s recent dividend blockers, which you can read here.

Everybody knows that finance is a male-dominated industry, and there are plenty of initiatives to change that. But when you look at the numbers, it can be quite staggering to realize that, for example, just one in 10 senior portfolio managers in private credit is a woman.

For this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, we’re celebrating International Women’s Day by examining how far the industry has come in terms of gender balance — and how far it still has to go.

Join our co-hosts Shubham Saharan and Sasha Padbidri as they speak with Erika Morris, head of US CLOs at Tikehau Capital, and Nadja Marcoz, a partner at Napier Park who heads up the firm’s institutional relationships.

And if you want to read more personal stories about women in credit, and some information on how various firms are trying to advance gender equality, check out the deep dive article on this issue that we published last year.