Cloud 9fin

An old adage is proving true in the private credit markets: it takes money to make money. Or maybe more accurately in this case, it takes billable hours to make money.In this episode of Cloud 9fin, head of private credit Josie Shillito digs into Dominus Capital’s buyout of Creative Outdoor Advertising with reporters Tom Quinn and Anna Russi. They unpack their recent article, which gives a behind-the-scenes view into how the sponsor front-loaded a negotiated credit agreement with Twin Brook before entering exclusivity with the seller.It’s another example of an emerging strategy to win deals on speed and certainty in a tight lower middle market. They discuss what the bold move signals for lenders, lawyers, and future auctions.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, our global head of CLOs, Tanvi Gupta, returns for her ongoing series, Tranche Talk. This time, she’s joined by Oak Hill Advisors’ portfolio manager Tommy Wong.They dive into the forces shaping today’s CLO market — including macroeconomic drivers, asset allocation strategies, credit selection in a low-arb environment, as well as the effects of M&A on loan supply.Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com.

Betting on sports has been a huge engine of growth for LevFin gaming companies. But is sports contract betting a boom or bust moment for the industry?As apps like Robinhood and Kalshi make it possible to buy or sell contracts based on all kinds of binary events, some gaming companies are eyeing the potential windfall from bringing the same kind of contract trading to sports events.In this week’s episode of Syndication Nation, a podcast dedicated to all things leveraged finance-related, Peter Hammon, online gaming and sports betting lawyer and senior of counsel at Vela Wood, joins 9fin leveraged finance reporter Zoe Han to talk about the fast moving scene around sports contract betting, including the implications of the recently announced partnership between gaming company FanDuel and CME, one of the world’s biggest derivatives marketplaces.They discuss how contract betting could supercharge the next phase of growth for gaming credits — or leave them mired in regulatory red tape. Place your bets!Have any feedback about this episode? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Litigation against aggressive liability management exercises in Europe is on the rise as creditors fight back against sponsor’s tactics to prime minority creditors.Back in November a group of primed creditors in Dutch lingerie maker Hunkemoller filed a lawsuit in New York against US hedge fund Redwood after it uptiered its portion of the debt.Redwood implemented the same tactic in another uptier transaction with UK carpet maker Victoria PLC’s notes, which primed minority holders.More recently, in August a minority creditor in Swiss vending machine provider Selecta filed an appeal against its restructuring in a Dutch court.In this episode of Distressed Diaries, 9fin’s senior distressed reporter Bianca Boorer sat down with Duane Loft, partner at Pallas Partners, who is representing the primed holders in Hunkemoller, and 9fin senior distressed credit analyst Denitsa Stoyanova CFA.We discuss the Hunkemoller case, provide updates on the litigation process, and examine potential outcomes if Victoria's transaction faces legal challenges.We also delve into what creditors should consider when deciding whether to litigate, how litigation can help with negotiations, and compare litigation practices in the US versus Europe. And for more background see here our three-part series on the Americanisation of European LMEs.

In this episode of Jane’s LME Addiction, 9fin’s head of LME coverage Jane Komsky brings in Shai Schmidt, a partner from Glenn Agre, to discuss how minority holders are thinking about LMEs. They discuss the best time to organize, when to negotiate and when to litigate, and tools and trends for minority holders to consider.Find all of our coverage on LME litigation on 9fin.Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

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.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

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 podcast@9fin.com.

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 podcast@9fin.com — 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?Have any feedback about this episode? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

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.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com.

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.Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

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 podcast@9fin.com — 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.Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com.

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 podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

It has been a busy month for the Significant Risk Transfer (SRT) market as investors returned from the Global ABS conference in Barcelona earlier this month to a flurry of new deals, 9fin’s Celeste Tamers reported.In this episode of Cloud 9fin, US distressed debt reporter Ayden Crosby is joined by David Lucking, a partner in Linklaters' US structured finance practice, to discuss the state of SRT and unpack some of the differences and emerging trends in US versus European markets.Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com.

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, Tanvi Gupta, global head of CLOs at 9fin, talks with Sumer Chopra, director at Alumia, to discuss how CLOs have gone from an exotic to an essential product in the eyes of institutional investors.They discuss what’s led to the boom of family offices allocating to CLOs, double-Bs and single-Bs outperforming CLO equity, and how some endowments still struggle with the legacy bias from the GFC. They go on to unpack what the ideal pitchbook from a CLO fund manager looks like and the growth of evergreen funds, among other things.Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com.

We are back to France — the current epicentre of European credit stress — for our second episode of Distressed Diaries.Over the last few months, French lab company Cerba’s debt has taken a beating as fears mount over its unsustainable €3.8bn capital. Most recently, 9fin reported that creditors have started to organise and appointed legal advisors in the lead up to possible debt negotiations.There’s no lack of drama in this episode. First, the company’s liquidity has been hit by the French government’s decision to cut tariffs on lab tests in September last year. Then CEO Emmanuel Ligner unexpectedly stepped down in March with his replacement Julien Samson only joining in early June.The weak performance has meant climbing net leverage (to 9.3x in Q1 25 from 8.4x in FY 24), followed by recent S&P’s downgrade to CCC+ and listing of its debt from CLOs.In this episode, our host, senior distressed reporter Bianca Boorer, sits down with 9fin’s senior distressed credit analyst Denitsa Stoyanova and senior legal consultant Rebecca Davies to talk about Cerba’s financial situation, creditors’ reactions, how the company plans to address this, what is possible under the debt docs, and more.9fin’s analysis of Cerba’s capital structure is here and a deep dive over LME and liquidity options is here.

President Donald Trump’s much anticipated ‘Liberation Day’ sent global markets into a tizzy in April, but how did private credit firms react?During what we have termed the ‘Deliberation Days’ of Q1, private credit investors were scrambling to mitigate potential tariff risks as best they could but they were also on the offensive.Elijah Jackson’s latest quarterly report on the state of the market, ‘Good Deal Hunting’, is aptly titled as direct lenders did not shy away from stealing BSL marketshare during the period. And PC firms were also able to pick up an extra 25bps of spread on average — how d’ya like them apples?David Brooke, 9fin’s private credit editor, sat down with Elijah on this week’s episode of Cloud 9fin to unpack some of the wicked smart moves that lenders made.Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

In this week’s episode of Syndication Nation, a podcast dedicated to all things leveraged finance-related, 9fin deputy editor Sasha Padbidri and head of legal James Wallick have put together a terrible headline and a great conversation on the emergence of President Donald Trump’s tariff language in new issue debt documents.For more details (and terrible headlines), check out our reporting on Spanish waste management company Urbaser, which is among the first leveraged credits to include tariff language in its new issue bond OM.Have any feedback about this episode? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!