Cloud 9fin

The World Cup summer is now a fading memory, but with the Premier League back, Cloud 9fin’s Distressed Diaries keeps football in focus while shining a light on the sector’s financial difficulties. Football clubs were traditionally bankrolled by wealthy men. Successful businessmen channelled their buccaneering instincts into their favourite sport, splurging wealth they made elsewhere. The latest in this long line, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder, is set to buy a stake in Liverpool as part of a consortium led by British-Indian millionaire businessman Amit Bhatia.
But rising costs, including eye-watering player salaries and transfer fees, has meant that one man’s opulence, however fabulous, is not enough to save a struggling business. Not least in an industry as money-guzzling as professional football.
As a result, clubs resorted to borrowed money and a great many have struggled to pay that money back.
In this episode of Distressed Diaries, host and senior reporter Bianca Boorer and distressed debt reporter Aditya Anand Kumar speak with Owen Ormond, restructuring partner at Ward Hadaway about the rise of distress in football clubs in Europe, the extent to which regulation can control club owners’ profligacy and the role of alternative types of credit.

A New York state judge is preparing to hear a trial between Black Diamond Capital Management and Bank of America, the result of which could provide a better understanding of how lender DQ lists are enforced. In this episode of Cloud 9fin, Jane Komsky unpacks the case and the potential impacts on the broader market with Polsinelli restructuring chair David Karp and 9fin reporter Tom Quinn.
The discussion examines the three questions now facing the court: whether Bank of America should have settled a trade with an affiliate to a disqualified lender, whether it satisfied a requirement to provide an economic equivalent when the trade failed, and whether it acted as soon as practicable to find a solution.
Karp argues that any ruling is likely to focus on Bank of America’s post-trade conduct rather than overturn the core loan-market principle that a trade is a trade. The case also highlights the value of lender-of-record status, opaque DQ lists, voting rights and the risk to desks that leave trades unsettled.
You can read our original story on the litigation here.
Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Judge Lopez’s Serta ruling lands after Del Monte and American Tire, putting pro rata sharing, sacred rights and LME damages back in the spotlight.
Ropes & Gray’s Rachel Strickland and Eliza Hollander join 9fin Head of LMEs Jane Komsky to parse what these three cases mean for the future of in-court and out-of-court restructurings.
The trio compares Judge Lopez, Judge Kaplan and Judge Goldblatt’s approaches to similar pro rata sharing language in very different settings: Serta outside bankruptcy, and Del Monte and American Tire inside Chapter 11, both with DIP fights.
Strickland and Hollander examine whether roll-ups, cashless exchanges and DIP subordination should be treated as payments or reductions under legacy credit agreements, and why Fifth Circuit open-market purchase analysis continues to shape the debate. They also dig into ratable-offer mechanics, Serta-style uptiers, excluded lender remedies, par participation damages and the tension between textual contract interpretation and bankruptcy court equity.
They also explore whether LME fatigue, litigation costs and the 2027-2028 maturity wall will push market participants towards ratable structures or efficient Chapter 11s.
Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

Daniel Rudnicki Schlumberger, a 30-year JP Morgan veteran, sits down with senior leveraged finance reporter Nicolle Liu to unpack how the bank is exporting its Security and Resiliency Initiative (SRI) from the US to EMEA — mobilizing private capital for the sectors governments now treat as strategic.
Schlumberger also discusses:
The $1.5trn, 10-year target and the full capital stack behind it: balance-sheet lending, syndicated loans, high yield, equity private placements, IPOs, venture and direct lending, second lien, PIK and hybrid capital;
Where the money is going: aerospace and defense, nuclear, wind, solar, grid resiliency, AI, quantum, cyber, rare minerals, shipbuilding, robotics and critical medicines;
Deals in focus: Oxford Quantum Circuits' equity private placement, Czechoslovak Group's HY bond and defense IPO, and CoreWeave's debut euro bond;
Plus: private equity's push into defense consolidation, the sovereign data center question, government engagement, and how JP Morgan is staffing up its SRI team.
Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!

India’s private credit market is moving from IBC-era rescue finance to a broader asset class. Performing credit is hot, but complexity-driven capital remains scarce and potentially higher alpha.
InCred Alternatives’ Ankur Jain, who is a managing director for private credit strategies, tells 9fin APAC reporter Rajhkumar Shaaw about a market that is still only about $25bn-$30bn in AUM, or 0.6% of GDP, but growing at roughly 25% CAGR.
Jain also unpacks India’s private credit boom, why global macro has had limited impact on India-focused borrowers, and how domestic funds and wealth-market co-investments are increasingly challenging foreign investors.
Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at podcast@9fin.com. Thanks for listening!