I’ve never been a big subscriber to email newsletters — though apparently it’s all the rage these days. I finally decided to give it a try with Matt Levine’s Money Stuff and I’m seriously impressed. He’s been on leave since August and just started up again a couple of days ago. Anyway check out this excerpt from his newsletter from the heading $900 Million:
In August, just as I was going on leave, a group of hedge funds were in a bitter fight with Revlon Inc., which had made changes to its debt in a way that disadvantaged those funds. (It stripped collateral that was backing the loan they owned and used it to secure new debt that would be effectively senior to their loan; Mary Childs has a fun explanation here.) Those funds thought Revlon was violating its covenants and defaulting on its debt, making the debt due and payable immediately; Revlon thought it was doing something tricky but allowed. The fight pitted experienced credit funds like Brigade Capital Management and HPS Investment Partners against famed corporate raider Ronald Perelman, Revlon’s controlling shareholder. Undoubtedly the hedge funds came into work on Aug. 11 expecting another day of hard fighting against opponents who would not give an inch.
But then instead the money just showed up in their bank accounts? Citigroup Inc. was the administrative agent for a $900 million Revlon loan that was the subject of the default dispute. It was supposed to wire an interest payment of about $8 million to the lenders on Aug. 11, but by accident it sent the whole $900 million instead. Oops!
Read the rest over at Bloomberg. You can get his content on the web but if you’re looking to give email newsletters a chance you can subscribe to Matt Levine’s Money Stuff.
I also get emails from the recently revived Today in Tabs (subscribe to newsletter) and the New York Times (subscribe to newsletter). I would probably go all in and buy a subscription to The Times but I’m worried that if I change my mind they are notoriously hard to cancel.