Cloud 9fin

Distressed Diaries — Will the SUNs shine on Arxada A&E deal?

Sponsors Bain and Cinven are confident creditors will approve the A&E deal for Arxada, despite opposition from its senior unsecured bondholders. But is that confidence based on sunny optimism? 9fin sources say negotiations are ongoing with the SUNs in the background as the deadline to sign up for the deal is today (28 May). The company may look to extend by a day, Cinven partner Christopher Anderson, said on a Q1 26 earnings call yesterday (27 May). The company received over 90% support from its secured creditors last week, Anderson said. However, he did not give an update on the SUN consent threshold, which was a meagre 20% at the deal launch on 13 May. The company needs 75% from each class of creditors to implement the deal through an English scheme of arrangement, which it filed for on 26 May. In this episode of Distressed Diaries, host and senior reporter Bianca Boorer speaks with distressed credit analyst Yusuf Sule and senior legal consultant Luke Viner about the A&E deal, creditor sentiment, what could happen if it goes to court, and how the company might handle the unconsenting SUNs.

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Syndication Nation — From mega-cap to megawatts: How AI data center bonds are rewriting the credit playbook

In our latest episode of Syndication Nation, US investment grade editor William Hoffman and senior leveraged finance reporter Sunny Oh discuss one of the hottest topics in corporate credit — data center bonds. With billions of dollars of fresh debt hitting both high-grade and high-yield markets to finance the AI infrastructure buildout, investors are being asked to underwrite these project finance-type deals. That’s changing the job of the average tech credit analyst, forcing them to exercise a due diligence muscle they don’t typically use. For more detail, read Will, Sunny, Yiwen and Dan’s latest piece discussing all the nuances and structures that lenders say can make or break one of these bond offerings. Find all our coverage of this new debt class at 9fin.com. Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

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Syndication Nation — The $81bn HY/IG jigsaw puzzle behind Paramount-WBD

In our latest episode of Syndication Nation, US investment grade editor William Hoffman and LevFin senior reporter Sunny Oh break down a complicated mess of debt headed for the primary in the back half of 2026 to fund the combination of Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery. The debt stack is expected to include $32bn of existing bonds and $49bn of newly syndicated debt split across asset classes for one of the largest financings of the year. For more detail, read William, Sunny and Will Macadam’s latest piece breaking down the colossal $81bn debt stack that will finance this deal. Find all our coverage of the Paramount-WBD deal at 9fin.com. Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

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Tranche Talk — Unlocking value in infra CLOs with RRAM’s Anjana Ravani

In this episode of Tranche Talk, *Cloud 9fin’*s CLO series, our global head of CLOs Tanvi Gupta, talks with Anjana Mohan Ravani, head of CLOs and corporate ABS at Redding Ridge Asset Management. They dive into infrastructure CLOs as an exciting growth area and discuss the value proposition for investors looking to underwrite the asset class and what the portfolio composition would look like for these deals. They also delve into the lay of the land in private credit, CLO triple-A investor sentiment and the potential misconceptions about captive equity returns.

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Syndication Nation — Is software credit headed for terminal decline?

In this episode of Syndicated Nation, senior reporter Sunny Oh welcomes Lotfi Karoui, managing director and multi-asset credit strategist for Pimco, to discuss how corporate credit has managed to hold up in the face of geopolitical jitters from the Middle East and worries around the terminal value of software businesses. Karoui also addresses the relative liquidity between direct lending and 144a private placements — often conflated with private credit — the growing dispersion of loan marks in business development vehicles, and questions around whether public bond markets can absorb the flood of data-center-driven issuance spurred by hyperscalers’ AI spending. Find all of our coverage on leveraged finance and corporate credit at 9fin.com. Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

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Jane’s LME Addiction — Will law firm musical chairs bring LMEs 3.0?

In this episode of Jane’s LME Addiction, our head of LME coverage Jane Komsky welcomes back Jon Henes, founder and CEO of strategic communications firm C Street to discuss the market’s shift from the technical "how-to" of liability management transactions to the fundamental "why." Jon addresses the growing skepticism surrounding the efficacy of these deals, the strategic vision behind C Street’s new law firm optimization practice and explores whether the "musical chairs" of elite legal talent is ushering in a new era of consensual capital solutions or simply more complex bankruptcies. Find all our coverage on LMEs at 9fin.com. Have any feedback on the podcast? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com — thanks for listening!

Straight outta Hormuz — credit analysis in the age of macroshocks

While the software sell-off was the story of the markets in January, the war between the US and Iran has dominated headlines since the end of February. Back in September, 9fin highlighted a closure of the Strait of Hormuz as a black swan event that would shock the oil markets. When that scenario moved from a remote possibility to an impending risk, the team revisited the situation and outlined the first and second-order impacts of a potential strike — and then the war began. In this episode, 9fin’s global head of distressed and LevFin Max Frumes is joined by senior credit analyst Alec Keblish to score the call: what they got right, what this tells us about prevailing market sentiment, and which sectors and individual issuers still contain pockets of volatility or opportunity even if the war were to conclude today. Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Syndication Nation — I just came to say HALO

The HALO (heavy assets, low obsolescence) trade has gained traction in recent months — particularly in the equity markets — as investors turn away from software businesses amid AI displacement concerns. In this week’s episode of Syndication Nation, 9fin’s podcast on all things leveraged finance, LevFin reporter David Westenhaver joins US deputy editor Sasha Padbidri in unpacking HALO for our side of the market — which credits are actually benefitting from the trade, and whether this is truly a safe haven for LevFin investors. Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

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Lessons learned from the corrosion of Exide Technologies with George Schultze

Everyone remembers their first car… lead-acid battery supplier bankruptcy. For Max Frumes, 9fin’s global head of distressed debt and LevFin, that situation was Exide Technologies. It was the first full cycle of distress, bankruptcy and emergence that he covered in his storied career. And George Schultze, founder and CEO of Schultze Asset Management and author of The Art of Vulture Investing, was an investor during that Exide bankruptcy — the second one, anyway — which taught him some valuable lessons about the importance of being nimble. And, of course, that regulatory factors are more likely to upend distressed investing strategies than support them. In this latest episode of Cloud 9fin, Max and George compare notes, reminisce, and banter about a wide spectrum of distressed companies past and present. Thanks for listening! Have any feedback for us? Send a note to podcast@9fin.com.

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