The rise of Kirkland’s LME juggernaut — and what its future holds

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Events & Webinars

Saddle up: Careers in the year of the fire horse

A Lunar New Year networking event for opportunistic credit and restructuring professionals, taking place on Thursday, February 26, 5–7 pm ET at Buddakan in New York.

11 Feb 2026

| US

Educationals

LevFin

A crash course on covenants

Covenants are a core source of investor protection in sub-investment grade bonds and loans, shaping what companies can - and can’t - do. This course explains how the most important covenants work, and how to assess the risks they create for investors.

11 Feb 2026

| Global

News & Analysis

Distressed

LevFin

The rise of Kirkland’s LME juggernaut — and what its future holds

As the fallout from Optimum’s antitrust lawsuit continues to reverberate through the restructuring world, one question now towers above the rest: What will become of the driving force behind Kirkland & Ellis’s dominant company-side liability management practice.

6 Feb 2026

| US

| Europe

Market Wraps

LevFin

Asia weekly — China property debt… can we call it a comeback?

China’s developers tap offshore markets Chinese property developers are re-entering global credit markets at a strong pace in 2026. By the end of January, six mainland Chinese and Hong Kong property firms together raised $2.2bn in debt — enough to eclipse the total raised throughout all of 2024.

6 Feb 2026

| APAC

Market Wraps

Investment Grade

US IG Wrap — Oracle kickstarts AI funding, BDCs widen on software worries

The first trading week of February was flush with activity for the US investment grade bond market, with consensus expectations already surpassed by Tuesday largely thanks to a jumbo deal from Oracle, and utilities chasing debt funded growth in AI.

6 Feb 2026

| US

Market Wraps

Excess Spread — FAT in the fire, reaping the ramp

Excess Spread is our weekly newsletter, covering trends, deals and more in structured credit and ABS — subscribe to this newsletter here. FAT in the fire

6 Feb 2026

| Europe

Events & Webinars

Cloud 9fin — Syndication Nation — Recapping a jam-packed January with AGL’s Wynne Comer

The leveraged finance markets saw a handful of leveraged buyouts keep pricing on their financing packages tight in January 2026. This was in spite of multiple geopolitical shocks and a sell-off in software loans as vibe coding comes into vogue.

5 Feb 2026

| Global

Distressed

ConvergeOne drives New Jersey’s ascendence as venue for non-pro rata bankruptcy deals

The US District Court for the Southern District of Texas’s ConvergeOne decision has reshaped the landscape for complex restructurings which propose plans that do not treat similarly-situated creditors equally. Five months on, the case’s ripple effects are now clearly present in complex Chapter 11 venue selection.

5 Feb 2026

| US

Private credit defends software exposure amid sector selloff

An ongoing selloff in software companies is sparking concern in the private credit market, which is highly exposed to the sector — and inspiring rebuttals from private credit giants like Ares and Thoma Bravo.

5 Feb 2026

| US

| Europe

Events & Webinars

Webinar replay — What to expect from Japan's snap election?

The full replay of our webinar, ‘What to expect from Japan's snap election?’, is now available. Scroll down to access the recording. 9fin’s Asia editor Richard Macauley was joined by Akihiro Tsuchiya, senior advisor at The Asia Group and former senior MOF official (Japan), as well as David Boling, principal at The Asia Group and former deputy assistant US trade representative for Japan, to discuss the upcoming election on 8 February.

5 Feb 2026

| Global

9Questions

9Questions

Investment Grade

9Questions — Georgie Merson, BlackRock — Risks and rewards for European credit in 2026

9Questions is our Q&A series featuring key decision-makers in the corporate credit markets — get in touch if you know who we should be talking to!

4 Feb 2026

| Europe

Distressed

FAT Brands meltdown shows WBS investors can’t count on protection

Don’t miss out on news you won’t find anywhere else — get The Memo US and The Memo Europe in your inbox every two weeks. The sudden bankruptcy of restaurant group FAT Brands, whose whole-business securitization noteholders allege its controlling shareholder misused funds, highlights the plight of investors who may have hoped this structure would protect them.

3 Feb 2026

| US