The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
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Many levered borrowers are already unable to satisfy their debts
“What we see today as we look at the earnings power of companies that we're talking to lenders about, that they are in that place already. They are facing real inability to satisfy their debts as they come due, which is one of the classic destinations of insolv…”
Creditor-on-creditor violence and priming transactions will increase in coming years
“And this creditor on creditor violence is a rising trend that I don't see going away anytime soon. Until the creditor groups start to write tighter credit agreements, or the courts define very narrow guidelines around how these credit agreements can be interpr…”
Credit investors are obligated by fiduciary duty to seize value creation
“And I think there's a much more level playing field today, and I think that, look, we all have a fiduciary duty to the investors we serve, and so if the opportunity for value creation exists, it's your obligation to take it.”
Milgram: You invest with a butcher's knife, but restructure with a scalpel
“This is an in the weeds game. And so one of the things I talked to my investment team about is you invest with a butcher's knife, but you restructure with a scalpel. And if you don't do the detail work, You're going to get a bad outcome.”
Milgram: Middle-Market Distressed Credit Avoids Multi-Deal Mega-Fund Conflicts
“Honestly, it's why we like to be in the middle market because there's way, way, way less of that in the middle market. We are oftentimes the only secondary buyer in a credit we're working on. We're certainly the early Identifier and early adopter of that credi…”
Marblegate buys legal documents rather than just companies to drive restructuring
“First and foremost, part of our investment process is that while we invest in companies, we Buy documents. And those documents are what enable us to drive the investment process.”
Marblegate avoids oil and gas due to uncontrollable commodity risk
“We stayed away from oil and gas primarily because as we thought about it, there was, you were primarily taking commodity price risk. And that's a hard thing for us. Well, impossible thing for us to control. And so the tools of restructuring our value biased ap…”
Milgram: About three-quarters of Marblegate's purchases are direct-sourced and non-competitive
“About three quarters of what we have bought has been direct sourced, non-competitive.”
Milgram: Marblegate bought 46 NYC taxi medallions at Citibank foreclosure auction
“Our first purchase was of outright medallions and literally found out about it by doing what any good distress guy does. I opened the wall street journal and I immediately turned to the distress guy sporting pages, which are the foreclosure notices in the back…”