Fixed + Floating - The Credit Podcast
Fixed + Floating is a credit podcast for investors and finance professionals. Host Josef Pschorn, a credit portfolio manager, talks with guests from investing, research, and academia about private credit, high yield, distressed debt, and credit cycles. The show breaks down the technical mechanics of credit markets, including covenant evolution, liability management, restructuring, and quantitative credit. It also examines how macro policy affects credit markets. New episodes are released twice a month.
Folgen
France & AI's Debt Boom: When Do Bond Buyers Push Back? | Matt King (Satori Insights) #23
Matt King (Satori Insights) on France's sovereign risk, the hyperscaler borrowing boom and why tight credit spreads can coexist with growing risks.At recording, French five-year CDS were about 80bp and OATs were at their widest to Bunds since 2011, yet European corporate credit was still near its tights. Josef Pschorn speaks with Matt King about "The Great Deferral": borrowers that
Why Is CLO Equity Underperforming? And Can Private Credit CLOs Do Better? | Shiloh Bates (Flat Rock Global) #22
Shiloh Bates (Flat Rock Global) on CLO equity returns, loan repricing and private credit CLOs.CLO equity returned about −8% in 2025, on Flat Rock Global's CLO Equity Index. Defaults on 2021-vintage LBOs rose, recoveries fell to around 50 cents, and performing loans repriced tighter. Josef Pschorn speaks with Shiloh Bates about why reinvesting prepayments at a discount, the self-healing mechani
Credit Risk's Left Tail: How Much Can You Lose? | Michael Gatto (Silver Point) #21
Michael Gatto (Silver Point Capital) on what decides a lender's recovery: the credit agreement, not the default.A lender can be right about the business and still lose money. Josef Pschorn speaks with Michael Gatto about the second question a credit committee tends to skip. Not whether a borrower defaults, but what value and control leave the structure when a structure cracks.Shownotes and ana
Who Pays for the GPUs? How Lenders Underwrite AI Infrastructure | Ankur Patel (Ares)
Ankur Patel (Ares Credit Group) on asset-based finance for data centres, power and GPUs.A one-gigawatt data centre costs $15–20 billion to build. The GPUs and servers inside it can run $40 billion-plus, and they are the shortest-lived asset in the project. Josef Pschorn speaks with Ankur Patel about how that credit is structured so a lender is not relying on residual chip value to get repaid.Show
Do Restructurings Still Cut Debt? How Amend-and-Extend Took Over | Mike Harmon (Stanford GSB)
An amend-and-extend moves the maturity and leaves the leverage where it was. A debt-for-equity swap cuts the debt and dilutes the equity. The first is routine and the second is rare, and the constraint is not legal - most of the holder base cannot take the equity or does not want it.Josef Pschorn speaks with Mike Harmon of Stanford Graduate School of Business about why out-of-court restructurings
Inside a Long/Short Credit Hedge Fund: Sizing, Shorts and LME Risk — Frits Lieuw-Kie-Song (Ironshield Capital)
A fifteen-billion-dollar manager's European analyst can look at three or four situations before the rest fail his liquidity screen. Frits Lieuw-Kie-Song runs a few hundred million and can look at hundreds. This is a full walk through how a long/short credit hedge fund is actually run.Full analysis: https://open.substack.com/pub/fixedfloating/p/how-a-longshort-credit-hedge-fund?r=718tew&utm
Illiquidity in Private Credit: Why a $25M Loan Takes Six Weeks to Sell | Alex Cordover (Tradable)
Private credit has grown to roughly $2 trillion, but selling a single position remains a manual, bilateral process. Exiting a $25 million loan means NDAs, a data room, agent and borrower consents, and bespoke documentation — four to six weeks from decision to settlement, if a buyer is found at all.Full analysis: [INSERT SUBSTACK LINK]Josef Pschorn speaks with Alex Cordover, CEO of Tradable, about
Stress in MicroStrategy’s Preferreds: Why the Doom Loop Didn’t Happen | Mark Palmer (StoneX)
MicroStrategy’s preferred shares dropped more than 20% over a few weeks. Then an 8-K reversed the mood, handingthe company buyback authority over both its preferred and common stock for the first time. The headlines focused on a small Bitcoin sale; the more important story was buried underneath it.Full analysis: https://open.substack.com/pub/fixedfloating/p/stretch-is-not-cash-the-lesson-from?r=71
Big Market Delusion: Why Private Credit Is AI’s Biggest Loser | Aswath Damodaran (NYU)
Each AI company can price itself on an internally consistent story about winning its market. Sum those stories and the implied revenues exceed any market that could exist — the big market delusion. Aswath Damodaran puts a ceiling on it: $142 trillion in global revenues last year against $20–25 trillion in employee costs, which makes the $26 trillion addressable market in SpaceX’s IPO pitch fiction
Distress in Auto Suppliers: Why Operational Fixes No Longer Work | Steiner (PWC) & Hauke (Willkie)
A third of Europe’s auto suppliers now sit in the distressed zone, and the share has barely moved in two years. Thesector has stopped behaving like a set of single restructuring cases and started behaving like a structural problem — one where operational stabilization no longer fixes the credit story.Full written analysis: https://open.substack.com/pub/fixedfloating/p/the-autosupplier-problem-that
HY Building Materials: Why It’s Really One Housing Trade | Andy Belton (Creditsights)
US high-yield building products are a leveraged play on the US housing cycle dressed up across ten different tickers — and the concurrent distress in Cornerstone, JELD-WEN, Old Castle, and USLBM is the proof.Full written analysis: https://open.substack.com/pub/fixedfloating/p/one-housing-trade-ten-tickers-the?r=718tew&utm_medium=iosAndy Belton, Senior Analyst and Head of European Basics &
Significant Risk Transfer (SRT) Mechanics: Capital Relief, Tranching, and Cycle Risk | Frank Benhamou (Cheyne Capital)
Significant Risk Transfers have quietly grown into a $1T+ hedged market — now bigger than European CLOs — and they sit at the centre of how banks manage RWAs, capital, and CET1 ratios.Full analysis: https://open.substack.com/pub/fixedfloating/p/significant-risk-transfer-has-quietly?r=718tew&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webJosef Pschorn speaks with Frank Benhamou, Partner & Portfolio
Liability Management in Software Credit: Covenant Erosion, Drop-Downs & the Xerox JV Maneuver | Sabrina Fox (Fox Legal Training)
Covenant quality is weakening at a measurable rate, and software credits are where it is going to matter most.Full analysis: https://open.substack.com/pub/fixedfloating/p/why-software-credits-are-lme-catnip?r=718tew&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webJosef Pschorn speaks with Sabrina Fox of Fox Legal Training about the systematic erosion of lender protections in leveraged finance documentatio
Private Credit, Life Insurers, and Rating Arbitrage | Jakub Lichwa (TwentyFour AM)
A three-notch downgrade on a zero-default portfolio can more than double an insurer's capital requirement.Read the full investment breakdown on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/fixedfloating/p/when-annuities-meet-private-credit?r=718tew&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=webCatch our first deep dive with Jakub on the PE Insurance Flywheel (Episode 3): https://fixedfloating.substack.co
Software Moats & AI Capex Risk: Why Dominant Firms Stay Dominant | James Bessen (Boston University) #09
Many dominant firms may be harder to disrupt today than popular narratives suggest.Josef Pschorn speaks with James Bessen of Boston University’s Technology & Policy Research Initiative about how proprietary software creates structural advantages for incumbent issuers, why AI capex may carry more tail risk than many investors assume, and how software complexity can create hidden credit risk.Key
Software Credit Below 80: Who Survives AI in a $40B Loan Market? | Alec Keblish & Matthew Hughes (9fin) #08
A growing pool of software loans is trading below 80 as the market reassesses durability, pricing power, and AI disruption risk.Josef Pschorn speaks with Alec Keblish and Matthew Hughes of 9fin about which software credits look fragile, which still have resilience, and how investors should distinguish repricing from real impairment in software credit.Key takeaways:Loans below 80 need a more differ
BDC Stress in Private Credit: Redemptions, PIK Risks & Valuation Pressure | John Giordano (Seaport Global) #07
Private credit’s pressure points are harder to see than its growth story.Josef Pschorn speaks with John Giordano of Seaport Global about BDC redemptions, PIK income, valuation marks, and what current stress signals may be telling investors about the broader private-credit market.Key takeaways:BDCs have become a major channel for private-credit riskRedemption pressure may matter more than many inve
High Yield's Fool's Yield Trap: Why 7.9% Returns Beat 13.9% Yields | Greg Obenshain (Verdad Capital) #06
In high yield, the highest nominal yield often produces the worst long-term result.Josef Pschorn speaks with Greg Obenshain, Partner at Verdad Capital, about why yield-chasing can damage portfolios and how a more quantitative credit framework can improve underwriting and portfolio construction.Key takeaways:The highest yields often come with the weakest outcomesSpread-chasing is not the same as go
INEOS Credit Deep Dive: Project One, High Yields & Refinancing Risk | Timothy Riminton (Bloomberg Intelligence) #05
INEOS has become one of the most important issuer-specific credit stories in European chemicals.Ineos Group analysis: https://fixedfloating.substack.com/p/ineos-group-holdings-all-hinges-onIneos Quattro analysis: https://fixedfloating.substack.com/p/e4-chemicals-overcapacity-crisisJosef Pschorn speaks with Timothy Riminton of Bloomberg Intelligence about Project One, leverage, legal structure, hi
Chemicals Credit Stress: Overcapacity, Energy Shock & Refinancing Risk | Timothy Riminton (Bloomberg Intelligence) #04
Chemicals credit is facing a difficult mix of overcapacity, weak demand, and refinancing pressure.Full analysis: https://open.substack.com/pub/fixedfloating/p/e4-chemicals-overcapacity-crisis?r=718tew&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=trueJosef Pschorn speaks with Timothy Riminton of Bloomberg Intelligence about the sector-level credit setup, why European issuers may
Private Credit Power Center: BDCs, Insurers & PE Capital | Jakub Lichwa (TwentyFour AM) #03
Private credit is increasingly shaped by insurers, BDCs, and private-equity-backed balance sheets rather than by direct lending alone.Full analysis: https://fixedfloating.substack.com/p/private-credits-insurance-flywheel?r=718tewJosef Pschorn speaks with Jakub Lichwa of TwentyFour Asset Management about how insurance capital, ALM constraints, and private-equity ownership are changing the structur
Shadow Defaults & Private Credit Risks in Credit Markets | Edward Altman (NYU Stern) #02
Official default rates can understate what is really happening beneath the surface of credit markets.Josef Pschorn speaks with Edward Altman, Professor Emeritus at NYU Stern and creator of the Z-Score, about shadow defaults, distressed exchanges, private credit, and the hidden stress that does not always show up in headline data.Key takeaways:Shadow defaults distort the real picture of credit-mark
First Brands Collapse: Chapter 11 & Distressed Credit Lessons | Jared Muroff (Octus) #01
First Brands became a case study in how stressed credit can unravel faster than many investors expect.Josef Pschorn speaks with Jared Muroff, Head of Special Situations at Octus, about what drove the collapse, how hidden financing and liquidity pressure shaped the restructuring, and why Chapter 11 complexity matters for distressed-debt investors.Key takeaways:Hidden financingcan accelerate downsid
Inside First Brands’ Collapse - Snippet
Inside First Brands’ Collapse - Snippet
Fixed+Floating - The Credit Podcast: Official Trailer
Welcome to Fixed + Floating: The Credit Podcast! 🎙️Launching this November, Fixed + Floating brings institutional credit investors in-depth conversations with leading voices in credit and macro markets. Our trailer gives you a sneak peek of the insights and strategies we’ll cover in full episodes.Listen to expert discussions on:- Credit markets and investment strategies- Macro trends shaping globa
