Best distressed trades of the decade thread?
Hi everyone,There was a thread sometime ago going over the best trades of the decade, mostly on the distressed side but I think it was pretty general and I just can't find it.WSO is good at a lot of things but the search function is not one where it excels so I'm tapping the collective wisdom of the community: can anyone share that piece of history here?Thanks!
Edit: Found it!
Didn’t that guy Akshay Shah at GSO do some crazy stuff?
Gotta say was willing to bet big bucks that the first comment would be about GSO, wasn't sure whether it was going to be Hovnanian, Codere or something else though
Edit: https://www.ft.com/content/5e23e516-5cdc-11e8-ad91-e01af256df68
Shah pulled off a couple of big ones on the "manufactured default trade" but the problem is that is not a repeatable trade and eventually people just stop participating in the single-name CDS market if they know you are on the other side. Funnily enough, while I rate Shah highly as an investor, his fund hasn't been able to raise significant money since he left GSO.
I think in recent years some of the trades that I really admire are the outright shorts just given the high coupon drag (negative carry) and cost of borrow, you really needed to be sure about both how the situation would play out and timing. So guys who shorted Debenhams bonds at par, or Thomas Cook bonds at par, or even names like Abegoa or Isolux Corsan (back in 2015/2016) I felt those were great trades. In recent years, you have to like both the Hertz and Europcar ideas on the long end, and even just big picture trades like Ackman buying protection on the credit market just before covid hit spreads.
Thanks! SB-ed. A lot of the trades you mention were in that thread, do you happen to know what I'm referring to? If you have it bookmarked, could you share the link?
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