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The first half of 2025 was noticeably quieter for European restructuring and LME activity compared to H1 24, a sentiment backed up by data from 9fin’s restructuring database. Although we have seen an uptick in the number of contentious, non-pro rata deals (some of which are in the H2 25 data) with a growing US-style influence, overall activity levels were down.

9fin tracked 16 completed LMEs and restructurings in H1 25, compared with 27 deals in H1 24. What’s behind the drop? The factors captured in the data are three-fold: 1) the number of large and smaller cap stack deals dropped year-over-year; 2) many 2025 and late-2024 restructurings are dragging into H2 25, which could course-correct 2025 vs 2024 volumes; 3) there were no real estate deals in H1 25, whereas it was a prominent sector in H1 24 with five deals.

The drop in large cap stack deals also contributed to a notable volume drop - you’ll see many charts in the presentation skewed towards H1 24 for this reason - as the mammoth cap stacks of Emeis Group (fka Orpea) and Groupe Casino were not replaced by equally large situations in H1 25. This will largely reverse in H2 25 as Altice France and Ardagh wrap up their respective deals.

New money continues to be a noteworthy feature which is both driving a high number of repeat restructurings - seven out of 16 deals in H1 25 - and being used as a tool to elevate creditors’ position in advance of a more comprehensive restructuring. We explore these two points more below.

Other takeaways from the report include:

• Relatively more restructurings/LMEs in H1 25 were liquidity-driven as previously restructured companies required fresh support
• Four out of five maturity-driven deals that were announced within 12 months of their nearest maturity were already triple-C rated at the time of the announcement, indicating there weren’t major surprise or last-minute deals
• Stressed A&Es, which we put in our pro rata LME category, were a dominant deal type in H1 25 with seven deals. These were mostly maturity-driven and involved an injection of new equity money to support the transaction
• We saw three non-pro rata deals in total, two out-of-court LMEs (Kem One and Standard Profil) and one in-court (a new category) - Accell Group. This was a modest uptick from two non-pro rata deals in H1 24