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.

We’re kicking off a new podcast series, LME Doomscrolling with Laurie, where 9fin’s senior LME lawyer Laurie Tomassian unpacks the impact, risks and incentives of the evolving landscape of liability management exercises.

In this inaugural episode, Laurie sits down with Professor Mark Roe and researcher Vasile Rotaru of Harvard Law School to explore their new study which measures how non-pro rata coercive LMEs fare in the long run. They discuss whether LMEs deliver on their promise(s) to sustainably extend a distressed company’s runway.

Their study, entitled Liability Management’s Limited Runway: Corporate Restructuring Today, can be found here.

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

The recent sell-off in software has sparked a broader reassessment of risk across private credit. But are managers pulling back from risk, or just recalibrating how they price it?

In this episode of Cloud 9fin, private credit reporter Anna Russi sits down with Patrick Warren, head of private credit research at MSCI, to unpack what’s driving the shift. Drawing on new data, they explore where signs of stress are emerging in software lending and venture debt, how valuation marks could be masking underlying pressures, and what this reveals about risk, performance, and portfolio assumptions in today’s market.

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