State of Distressed Debt: Latham's Sobolewski on Debtor Playbook

“Ad hoc groups are decades old at this point. Co-ops are new. Since when do we have to promise to be friends? I think [co-ops] are inherently lame.” John Sobolewski, Partner and Global Chair of Latham & Watkins' Liability Management Practice, sat down with Bloomberg Intelligence’s Negisa Balluku and Philip Brendel at the Beard Group’s 2025 Distressed Investing Conference on Dec. 2. John shared his views on the LME landscape’s evolution and direction, jurisdictional considerations, and why he suspects the pervasiveness of cooperation agreements results from unhealthy lender distrust and advisers’ self-interest.

“There’s some articles out there that [suggest] once there’s losses, there could be a bunch of fire sales of assets ... not true,” says KKR Partner and Global Head of Private Credit Daniel Pietrzak when discussing misunderstandings about private credit markets. “We’ve got $131 billion of AUM. Almost none of that has any redemption feature.” Pietrzak joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s Noel Hebert on the latest episode of Credit Crunch to talk about volatility, continued market growth – especially in asset-based finance – and strategic partnerships like the company’s recent deals with Harley-Davidson and PayPal. They also examine global opportunities, how AI factors into lending decisions and the benefits of diversification. The Credit Crunch podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.

Event risk is poised to increase across the emerging-market fixed income landscape, as creditors must contend with elections in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Hungary, Israel and Peru. Elina Theodorakopoulou, managing director and EM portfolio manager at Manulife Investment Management, joins Damian Sassower, Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief EM fixed income strategist, to decompose year-to-date performance in emerging-market debt and set performance targets for 2026. Theodorakopoulou and Sassower touch on topics ranging from fiscal spending and monetary stimulus to new issuance and credit rating migration.

US commercial real estate is set to keep stabilizing in 2026 as liquidity improves and capitalization rates decline. Harbor Group International President Richard Litton joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s chief fixed-income strategist, Damian Sassower, to discuss his company’s approach to asset management amid an affordability crunch that shows no sign of abating in the year ahead. Litton and Sassower discuss the various loan types and financial structures that institutional investors can access across the US commercial real estate market.

Global credit markets are tight, and strategic insights are essential looking into 2026. In this episode of the Credit Crunch podcast, Mahesh Bhimalingam, Bloomberg Intelligence's global head of credit strategy, hosts BI's global credit strategy team to highlight worldwide research, data and views. Tim Tan and Jason Lee (Asia), Basel Al-Waqayan (Middle East), Reto Bachmann (Structured Finance), himself (Europe) and Sam Geier (US) share takeaways on their market outlook, relative value and major themes shaping their regions. Access their research on the Bloomberg Terminal at BI STRTA, BI STRTE, BI STRTN and BI EMFIG. The Credit Crunch podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series. Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The Fed and yield-driven bearish US dollar view remains our central working assumption into 2026, yet this could be a bumpy run depending on how US economic and inflation data evolve throughout the year. Beyond the dollar outlook, we touch on a compelling bullish Aussie view, look into the Hungarian forint appeal, as well as expected yuan and Malaysia ringgit outperformance in Asia FX. In Latam FX, we see possible outperformance for the Mexican peso vs the Brazilian Real. In the last episode of FX Moment of the year, Bloomberg Intelligence Chief G10 FX Strategist Audrey Childe-Freeman and her team, Chief Asia FX and Rates Strategist Stephen Chiu, Asia FX Strategist Chunyu Zhang, EMEA EM FX and Rates Strategist Sergei Voloboev and Senior Latam FX Strategist Davison Santana present their strongest FX conviction into 2026.

“You’re in the realm of the antitrust principles and the vapors that come off the big antitrust cases. I was very skeptical of the idea of a single company’s debt instrument … being a product market,” says Jennifer Selendy, founding partner of Selendy Gay, discussing how the latest legal challenges in Altice and Selecta to creditor cooperation agreements in the liability management sector stand on the very periphery of the antitrust doctrine. In a conversation with Bloomberg Intelligence’s Negisa Balluku on this episode of the State of Distressed Debt podcast, Selendy also discusses her involvement in the early days of LME litigation, in-court lessons and surprises, and the Incora saga. Prior to that, BI’s Noel Hebert, Phil Brendel and Negisa discuss their outlooks for 2026. The podcast concludes with a discussion on the latest developments at Hertz, First Brands, Ardagh Group and Azul. The State of Distressed Debt podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.

The Federal Reserve may cut its benchmark rate below 3% next year, bull steepening the yield curve beyond what’s priced into forwards, says Ira Jersey, Bloomberg Intelligence chief US rates strategist. Jersey is joined by BI US and Canada rates strategist Will Hoffman on this episode of the Macro Matters podcast to discuss the BI Rates team’s recently released 2026 US Treasury Market Outlook. The pair discuss the state and direction of the US economy and how Fed interest-rate and balance-sheet policies are likely to shift. They also touch on the supply-and-demand outlook for the Treasury market, as well as relative value across the yield curve. The Macro Matters podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.

Credit is tight and entering 2026 in uncertain times. Bloomberg’s London Credit Outlook event addressed this theme in depth and was recorded for this episode of the Credit Crunch podcast. Host Mahesh Bhimalingam, Bloomberg Intelligence’s global head of credit strategy, was a panelist on the macro panel, along with Iain Stealey, International CIO Global Fixed Income, JPMorgan Asset Management and Ashwin Palta, Global High Yield Fund Manager, Newton Investment Management, and Bruce Douglas, team leader, leveraged finance at Bloomberg News, moderating. The panel addressed rates impact on credit, the sovereign crisis, AI hyperscaler issuance, default risk and value hunting down the capital structure.  The Credit Crunch podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series. Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

“If there are things in your business that need to get done, but they’re pretty low risk, this is a great place to start because it has a very attractive risk-reward payout,” says Rob Slater, CEO and founder of Cognitive Credit, reflecting on one of the two areas where AI makes the most sense to deploy. “If you do an AI experiment and it doesn’t really work, you’re not really any worse off.” Slater joins Bloomberg Intelligence’s Noel Hebert on this episode of the Credit Crunch podcast to discuss Cognitive Credit’s work to automate portions of the analytic process, beginning with reliable financial-data extraction, and how that can scale into valuation. The two discuss the increased prevalence of technology across the credit investing landscape, and the growing need to be “doing something,” building on the themes of the firm’s white paper, “Why every credit investor now needs a credit data strategy.” The founder’s journey and the evolving needs of a growing business are also discussed.  The Credit Crunch podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.