Distressed debt: principal investing vs market making

Following on from the recent distressed threads, I was hoping someone could explain the difference between the distressed trading desks on the s&t side (where they do more flow / market making I think?) versus the principal investing desks (eg special sits) in the banks or the funds.

How does the approach differ? What about culture and comp (appreciating it will depend on the fund, group, bank etc).

thank you.

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