JFW’s Jon Weber on Post-Reorg Boards: State of Distressed Debt

“LMEs buy time for the sponsor, but I’m increasingly seeing that that’s all it really does.” Jon Weber, founder of JFW & Co., doesn’t mince words regarding the effectiveness of the popular restructuring strategy. Liability management exercises leave executives with a “sword of Damocles” over their heads, failing to really fix anything and with an aftermath that remains a management distraction, Weber told Bloomberg Intelligence’s Phil Brendel, in October’s feature interview for the State of Distressed Debt podcast. Weber shared his perspectives, honed at Icahn Enterprises, Goldman Sachs and Elliott Management, on running effective boards and companies post-reorganization (6:30). Prior to that, BI’s Noel Hebert and Phil discussed the complete dearth of distressed-debt inventory, as the distressed ratio plummeted to a 5.2% 28-month low in September. The podcast concludes with BI’s Negisa Balluku joining Noel and Phil for a roundtable discussion covering J&J’s latest Talc news, Hertz make-whole appeal, Audacy, Yellow, Tupperware, Telesat and what qualifies as a consensual release these days (59:00). This podcast is part of BI’s FICC Focus series.