Cloud 9fin

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.

In the constantly shifting landscape of private credit secondaries, diversification and strategic alignment play crucial roles as navigational aides.

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, Josie Shillito, head of private credit at 9fin, delves into the burgeoning market of private credit secondaries with experts Daniel Roddick and Francois Bouillon from Ely Place Partners.

They set the scene by highlighting the explosive growth in GP-led secondaries. This has been driven by a pressing need for liquidity amidst subdued M&A and IPO activity. The conversation explores how investors can strategically position themselves to capitalize on this market, emphasizing the importance of understanding the nuances of both LP-led and GP-led transactions.

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

In the inaugural episode of The In-Court Report with Cat Corey, distressed legal analyst Cat Corey brings in Vince Buccola, professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School and Lara Sheikh, bankruptcy legal analyst at 9fin, to discuss the latest trends relating to backstop fees in rights offerings and DIP financings, along with the impact of the recent ConvergeOne decision.

The episode also discusses a recent paper authored by Professor Buccola, along with Adi Marcovich Gross and Matthew McBrady, that analyzes the returns to equity rights offering backstop commitments.

Find all our coverage on issues relating to backstop fees at 9fin.com.

Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at [email protected] — thanks for listening!

A lot has changed in European restructuring this year.

Two more appeals in the UK courts — Thames Water and Petrofac — led to **Waldorf** failing at the first hurdle as judges increasingly focus on being fairer to creditors who are considered out of the money.

The appeals have created a lot of uncertainty as restructuring practitioners are trying to work out what exactly is considered fair? The Supreme Court hearing on Waldorf’s case in February hopefully should provide more clarity.

Issuers have been starting to shy away from using the UK Restructuring Plan to avoid the risk of their plan being reversed by the Court of Appeal. Instead they are increasingly turning to looking into ways to implement out of court through liability management exercises in other European jurisdictions.

We saw this in Selecta which implemented its restructuring through a distressed disposal in the Netherlands.

Private credit is also in the lime light this year as the market has been growing its presence in distress both as providers of fresh capital and as private credit lenders end up taking the keys.

In this episode we delve into all these emerging themes with Daniel Bayfield, Barrister at South Square and Lois Deasey and Matt Benson, restructuring partners from Weil. All three provide insights on their involvement in all of the above mentioned cases.

Weil and 9fin initially sat down to discuss these topics at the Weil & 9fin Private Credit & Restructuring Autumn Forum on 8 October (find here some of the highlights of that day). This podcast is for the benefit of those who could not attend!

It seems like everyone has a different definition of middle market direct lending and what challenges so-called ‘middle market’ borrowers and lenders are facing.

Join PGIM’s head of middle market direct lending, Matt Harvey, and 9fin senior private credit reporter Shubham Saharan as they explore trends in the middle market and what direct lenders and LPs should be on the lookout for as they head into 2026.

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

It’s not every day that we get to talk about something that’s quite literally out of this world.

We’re referring to space-based data centers, which billionaire tech titans and startups alike are racing to build out as AI fever grips Wall Street and Silicon Valley. Proponents argue that space data centers offer substantial benefits versus their terrestrial counterparts, including freedom from natural disaster risks, access to unlimited free solar power and elimination of complex cooling requirements.

Global head of Distressed & LevFin Max Frumes sat down with LevFin deputy editor Sasha Padbidri to unpack what this means for existing data center infrastructure and the billions of dollars of debt financing already raised by giants like Meta, CoreWeave and Amazon to fund those buildouts.

Have any feedback about this episode? Send us a note at [email protected]. You can also check out our feature on space data centers here.

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, distressed debt reporter Ayden Crosby and editor Rachel Butt sit down with Jamie Sprayregen, vice chairman of global strategy and growth at Hilco Global, for a grand tour through 2025’s hottest topics in distressed credit and the restructuring world.

We asked Jamie about his views on a number of 9fin’s favorite themes, including how AI is disrupting the market, the rise of ABS deals from stressed issuers, tussles between sponsors and creditors, the impact of tariffs, and his takeaways from the rapid downfall of First Brands.

Private equity-owned education companies like Houghton Mifflin and Lakeshore Learning are learning a hard lesson in the US leveraged finance market this year as their loans and bonds have tumbled to trade at discounts.

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, senior reporter Sunny Oh sat down with US managing editor Bill Weisbrod and discussed his story about how investors have taken a close look at this group of borrowers and asked what the future holds for them in a world where school districts have had to tighten belts and cut spending.

Most notably, we talked about how the expiration of the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Program (ESSER) has hurt education borrowers who have struggled to fill in the hole left by the $190bn policy. Meanwhile, falling school enrollment and the global trade war has compounded issues in the sector.

In this episode of Jane’s LME Addiction, our head of LME coverage Jane Komsky brings in Davis Polk partners Brian Resnick and Hilary Dengel to discuss voting cap and lender concentration cap language in credit agreements and how they may affect creditor organization and liability management exercises. They discuss the goals of these provisions, whether these provisions are “anti-co-op”, and whether they are more effective than DQ lists for sponsors trying to decide who buys into their debt.

Find all our coverage on concentration caps, voting caps, and DQ lists at 9fin.com.

Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at [email protected] — thanks for listening!