Cloud 9fin

Private equity has made its way into nearly 23% of for-profit US hospitals, despite financial goals that can be at odds with the patient-oriented priorities in health systems.

Distressed reporter Samantha Kroontje went to a new “healthcare desert” in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, to speak to some of the people impacted by the closure of its main health system, which came after years of debt-funded growth and dividends led by former private equity owner Leonard Green.

In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, deputy distressed editor Rachel Butt spoke with Kroontje about the reporting process for a recent feature story on the fallout of Prospect Medical’s bankruptcy. It delves into the financial maneuvers of Prospect’s previous private equity owner that led to the company’s unravelling, the healthcare workers who were impacted, and the local vendors likely to get pennies on the dollar.

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What happens when a banker gets fed up with outdated technology and decides to build something better?

In this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin, we depart from our usual programming to share an interview produced by one of 9fin’s investors, redalpine. Co-founder Steven Hunter shares how he turned years of complaining about broken fintech into 9fin — a 357-person company that's disrupting global debt markets.

Discover how he and his university roommate went from sketching company values on their kitchen table to growing rapidly in the US and UK, and why they chose to be "tech-first." Plus: his father's brutal advice about winning that drives everything 9fin does.

For more info about 9fin, visit our Insights page. To get in touch about this episode or any other, reach out at [email protected].

The English courts have been called upon several times in the last few years to reevaulate what should be considered fair in Part 26A restructuring plans.

Within 2025, the Court of Appeal handed down two key decisions on distressed utility company Thames Water and upstream energy engineering firm Petrofac’s restructuring plans.

Those decisions, combined with another Court of Appeal decision handed down last year on German real estate group Adler’s restructuring plan, have reconfigured the approach to assessing whether a restructuring is fair.

There are now new tests for evaluating whether a restructuring plan is fair, and a focus on fair allocation and what contributions stakeholders are making to the restructuring, as well as what they get out.

To unpack recent trends in Part 26A restructuring plans and what the recent Court of Appeal decisions mean for the future of UK restructuring plans, 9fin’s Will Macadam sat down Kirkland & Ellis partners Kate Stephenson and Kon Asimacopoulos, and David Allison KC of South Square.

In this episode of Jane’s LME Addiction, *9fin’*s head of LME coverage Jane Komsky brings in Sound Point Capital Management managing director, Morgan O’Neill to discuss the intersection of private credit and LMEs. They discuss the red flags and green flags of whether a deal away is a real possibility or just there to threaten exiting lenders and how to tell if a LME will be built to last.

Find all of our coverage on LME litigation on 9fin.

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

In this week’s episode of Syndication Nation, a podcast dedicated to all things leveraged finance, 9fin LevFin reporter Dan Mika talks with Barclays Head of US Credit Strategy Dominique Toublan about Barclays’ credit capitulation and complacency signals.

What does the recent miss and revision in the US jobs report mean for lenders? What does it mean when credit spreads are getting tighter despite the lack of new debt issuance? And why did Dan reference a TikTok meme from 2023 to frame these questions?

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On Sunday 27 July, US and the EU have struck a deal to set at 15% tariffs on EU export to the US, which is not as high as president Donald Trump previously threatened, but can still impact Europe’s biggest car producer, Germany.

Senior distressed reporter Bianca Boorer, host of this series, travelled to Munich to find out just how big the dent on the auto sector will be.

She sits down with Hendrik Hauke restructuring partner at Willkie, who has acted as legal advisor to auto suppliers Huf Group and IFA Group, Felix Kuhnert, head of automotive in Germany at PwC, and Florian Bruder, restructuring partner at DLA Piper.

In the podcast we take a look to the challenges the car industry was already facing with its mandated transition to electric vehicles by 2035 and whether auto makers can switch to producing equipment for the defense industry.

On the finance side, banks have been tightening their belts on their exposure to the sector, which may open up private credit as a new option. Restructurings have also been on the rise as a result of the volatility but not at the speed at which one would expect. At 9fin we have been covering the restructurings of auto suppliers Huf Group, Webasto, IFA Group and Standard Profil.

What will put the brakes on this downturn? Tune in to find out.

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In this episode of Cloud9fin, our distressed debt editor Rachel Butt brings in Jonathan Foster, founder of Current Capital Partners, to discuss corporate governance in restructurings and bankruptcies. They delved into Jon’s career, his book On Board, and thorny topics including the so-called super repeaters trend and third party releases.

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In this episode of Jane’s LME Addiction, 9fin’s head of LME coverage Jane Komsky brings in Mudrick Capital Management founder, Jason Mudrick, and Akin Gump partners Dan Fisher and Jaisohn Im to discuss disqualified lender (DQ) lists. They discuss the the goal of DQ lists, whether they actually work (spoiler: they believe they do not), and the implications for sponsors and lenders involved.

Find all of our coverage on LME litigation on 9fin.

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

Earlier in June, Ares priced its first direct lending CLO, the second of its kind of Europe, but with a twist — it is priced in sterling.

The last 12 months have been a busy time for the private credit giant, as they also completed a €30bn fundraise in Europe and opened a new office in Milan.

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, senior private credit reporter Synne Johnsson chats with Andrea Fernandez, partner in Ares’s investor relations and product management team for European direct lending, and Mike Dennis, Ares’s co-head of European credit. They discuss the firm’s newest CLO, how to deploy €30bn in a dried up LBO market and what opportunities Italy has to offer.

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In this episode of Jane’s LME Addiction, our head of LME coverage Jane Komsky brings in founding partner of Selendy Gay, Jennifer Selendy, to discuss LME litigation. They discuss the perspective of excluded lenders, when it makes sense to hold out, and why we have yet to find any certainty on the validity of specific LME tactics and debt document language.

Find all our coverage on LME litigation at 9fin.com.

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