Can Cubic stay on track?

Liability management exercises used to be niche — now its everywhere in distressed practice. Yet somehow, nobody thought to write the playbook on how they actually work. Until now.A new textbook, published by LexisNexis, is finally filling that gap. On this episode of Jane’s LME Addiction, Jane Komsky chats with Cassels Brock & Blackwell’s Matteo Clarkson-Maciel about what pushed him to organize it and Ropes & Gray’s Ed Downer and Sam Badawi on how LME practice differs across jurisdictions, and why you still need to know the basics in the age of AI.Grab your copy of the textbook here.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected].

You might not know Cubic by name, but if you’ve tapped into the MTA or BART, you’ve used their payments technology.Behind the scenes, the Elliott Management and Veritas-backed transit giant has been dealing with financial struggles related to contract losses and high-profile tech glitches, including a 27-hour BART outage in May caused by an unpaid AT&T bill.In this episode of Cloud 9fin, interim distressed debt editor Sasha Padbidri joins distressed debt reporter Nicholas Rizzi to break down his investigative deep dive into Cubic’s debt load, its recent setbacks and what comes next.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected].

The UK telecoms sector is currently facing significant financial and debt pressure, hitting major operators and altnets alike.Most recently, BT agreed to buy TalkTalk’s consumer and wholesale businesses out of administration for around £400m, a deal that has drawn sharp criticism from Virgin Media, which called it a ”stitch-up masked as a rescue”.Meanwhile, CityFibre is back to negotiating with the creditors on its £3.8bn debt stack one year after its last restructuring.In this episode of Distressed Diaries, host and senior reporter Bianca Boorer and senior distressed debt analyst Denitsa Stoyanova speak with Michael Weyrich, head of EMEA transformation at FTI Consulting about why the UK telecoms sector is struggling, whether consolidation can fix some of these issues and how they can deal with their burgeoning debt stacks.

**Anthropic has kicked off the road to one of the biggest IPOs of all time, and its 300 page S-1 filing has given the credit market plenty to chew on.In this episode of Cloud 9fin, interim distressed debt editor Sasha Padbidri cuts through the noise with senior reporters Maria Heeter and Dan Geiger to unpack the biggest takeaways from the filing.Tune in as they break down the scale of Anthropic’s massive AI infrastructure buildout, litigation risks, and the wildcards they’re watching next.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected], and be sure to check out Dan Geiger’s Hot Stacks — his weekly newsletter tracking data center deals and the dealmakers behind them. The first three editions are free to read on 9fin’s Insights page. Thanks for listening!

JP Morgan’s investment banking unit is so massive it has become almost synonymous with record-breaking financings. But a new initiative is expanding the bank’s coverage to include a segment of the market often overlooked by the largest institutions on the street: small-cap deals.This past July — just months after the firm’s bankers led the financing for Electronic Arts, the largest buyout in history — JP Morgan announced an expansion of its middle market team to focus on transactions valued at between $100m and $500m.The team has grown since. Yesterday morning (27 October), JP Morgan announced the addition of four managing directors to the small-cap team, bringing head count to 12 bankers.The small-cap space has for years had its own ecosystem: specialized investment banks, small sponsors and direct lenders fueled growth while their larger counterparts focused on transactions with bigger price tags. Recent years, however, have brought a slowdown in M&A, especially in the sponsor market, and industry players are looking down-market at opportunities to deploy capital.In this episode of Cloud 9fin, JP Morgan’s Michael Flynn, the new head of the small-cap investment banking team, talks with 9fin’s Tom Quinn about why we are seeing such growth in the space now, the role of the bank’s direct lending arm in small cap advisory work and issues founders face that are unique to the smaller market.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Puerto Rico may have filed to formally restructure back in 2017, but the lessons that can be learned still apply today. Former oversight board member David Skeel joins Jane Komsky to discuss his new book Promise Land which delves into the creditor battles, political compromises and lessons behind and beyond his experience navigating the restructuring.Skeel maps the competing claims of roughly $18bn of General Obligation bonds, $18bn of sales tax-backed Cofina bonds, clawback creditors, pension bonds and general unsecured creditors. He also recounts Aurelius’ role and attempt to mastermind the restructuring.The discussion explains how Promesa created the oversight board and Title III restructuring framework, and why Skeel believes an out-of-court resolution was ultimately unworkable. He recounts some of the unforeseeable obstacles including Hurricane Maria, political upheaval and the pandemic repeatedly disrupted negotiations, as well as divisions within the board complicating its dealings with creditors.For distressed and municipal bond investors, Skeel’s conclusions extend beyond Puerto Rico. To get the full story, Skeel’s book is available for purchase here.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

New Fortress Energy, Fossil Group and Argo Blockchain are putting English restructuring plans on the map for US-listed borrowers. What draws them across the Atlantic, and what does that choice mean for creditors?Will Macadam joins Linklaters restructuring partners Michael Torkin and James Warboys to break down how the US’s more comprehensive Chapter 11 bankruptcy process compares to the England’s more targeted Part 26A restructuring plan.The discussion touches upon what companies can do with a Chapter 11 filing that cannot be achieved with an English Part 26A and vice versa, why Part 26A plans have proven popular with some publicly-listed US companies, and how advisors decide where a distressed company should restructure its liabilities.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

On the pilot episode of Subprime Time — a podcast dedicated to unpacking all things asset-backed finance (ABF) — deputy editor Sasha Padbidri and ABF reporter Harrison Connery dive into the revival of music royalty asset-backed securities. They trace the market’s evolution from “Bowie bonds” to the current impact of generative AI on the asset class. Case in point: if a heartbroken teen can prompt AI to create a custom breakup song that sounds identical to Taylor Swift, what does that mean for the value of legacy catalogs?Harrison also shares his reporting on which music catalogs investment firms are currently snapping up, plus the surprising origin story behind Kygo’s hit remix of Whitney Houston’s “Higher Love”.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

While many European direct lenders are struggling to hit their fundraising targets, Hayfin has just pulled in more than €15bn.On Cloud 9fin, Synne Johnsson speaks with Hayfin’s head of direct lending Mark Bickerstaffe about fundraising, deployment and the changing balance of power in European private credit. He explains how investor diversification away from the US has helped Hayfin attract capital.The conversation also examines portfolio resilience, inflation risks and artificial intelligence. Looking ahead, it touches on refinancing challenges around 2028 and 2029 maturities, opportunities in capital solutions and asset-backed lending, and reasons for cautious optimism about deal activity later in 2026.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Over the last decade, household name and beloved yogurt brand Chobani has evolved from a capacity-constrained yogurt producer into a credit market darling.But tighter debt pricing is now prompting some of its longtime lenders to walk way even as they praise the business for its success.In this episode of Cloud 9fin’s Syndication Nation, US LevFin reporter David Westenhaver unpacks the interesting backstory behind Chobani with deputy LevFin editor Sasha Padbidri, including its history in the credit market and the impact of the protein-maxxing trend on the business.Since recording this podcast, the company has issued an additional $600m in debt to finance the purchase of a Pennsylvania production facility with an expected $1.2bn price tag.Have any feedback for us? Send us a note at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!