The Octus Download

Every retailer in America named Michael is either printing money or closing stores. Jason Sanjana and Kevin Eckhardt start with a tale of two Michaels (04:59). Michael Kors, the brand not the man, has quietly closed 139 stores in three years while sales dropped more than $860 million, caught in the collapsing middle where near luxury goes to die. Then the resurrection. Apollo bought Michaels, the craft chain, for $3.3 billion, watched the bonds trade at 34 cents, then refinanced the whole thing at par (11:33) after Joann and Party City conveniently burned down next door. There is a bankrupt balloon factory in here too.
From there (19:15), the bankruptcy boys return to the Kawhi Leonard beat. A $28 million endorsement for a green bank that went bust, a creditor list nobody was supposed to read, a 14 year federal sentence, and a frozen trade to Toronto. There is also a scrapped ad campaign so strange it deserves its own segment (27:43).
The show closes with a World Cup edition of Culture Corner (38:39). The final lands at MetLife on Sunday, and the American run was secretly a credit investing story. One text, one very large check, one Griffin (35:52). Producer Tanya road trips through AC refrigerant safety on the way out.
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Hosted by Jason Sanjana and Kevin Eckhardt
Produced and Edited by Tanya Hubbard
A Production of The Octus Podcast Network

Jason Sanjana & Kevin Eckhardt open on Sleep Number, the smart mattress maker that dialed itself into Chapter 11 (02:07). The stock dropped 70 percent, the equity is underwater, and strategic partner Travis Kelce bought his stake on the open market months before the filing. Kevin floats a theory about who actually buys these beds. The numbers tell a sadder story (04:02), and there is a Canadian buyer nobody saw coming (05:35).
From there (16:00), a summer camp empire. Simad Holdings ran 30 camps serving 20,000 kids a year, borrowed 195 million dollars from Israeli bond investors in December, and filed for Chapter 11 days after school let out. Jessica Steinhagen, Senior Director, Legal at Octus, joins (22:26) to explain the Jewish camp scene and answer the question every parent should ask. Whether solvency makes the list (25:02). Then the campers' embroidered trunks raise a genuine law school exam question (27:54).
Kevin takes us to Caracas (30:16) for Rodrigo Herrera, the 75 year old debt collector who works in a full devil costume and drives a flame painted 55 Chevy. The unofficial sponsor read lands (35:47) before Culture Corner (38:28) takes on Jon Hamm and 600 million dollars nobody wants to hold on Your Friends and Neighbors.
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Hosted by Jason Sanjana & Kevin Eckhardt
Guest: Jessica Steinhagen (Senior Director, Legal, Octus)
Produced and Edited by Tanya Hubbard
A Production of The Octus Podcast Network

Michael Gatto, partner at Silver Point Capital and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School and Fordham's Gabelli School of Business, joins at (02:12) to talk teaching, distressed investing, and how he went from a firm running $120 million to a $50 billion shop as its first non founder partner. He makes the case for hiring the gritty Fordham underdog over the Ivy pedigree, and explains why credit has always been a game for strivers. The timing is not subtle. BDCs are gating, First Brands had its disclosure statement denied with the US Trustee moving to convert to Chapter 7, and Jamie Dimon has been muttering about cockroaches. Gatto digs into what a credit analyst should actually learn from First Brands (19:43), what allocators should be asking direct lending managers (30:53), whether there is any fun left now that private credit went from the hottest asset class on the street to a beat down dog, and the O'Shea Center for Credit Analysis he founded at Fordham with Bob O'Shea.
The conversation turns to Caesars Entertainment (38:35), the largest casino company in the US with 53 properties across 18 states, and Fertitta Entertainment taking it private in a $17.6 billion all cash deal at a 49 percent premium. Kyle Owusu, Director of Credit Research at Octus, walks through it (39:37), the $11.9 billion of debt Fertitta is inheriting, the $569 million in interest the company pays every quarter, the change of control put bondholders were watching, and the go shop window that is still open. The real story sits in the digital business, which more than doubled EBITDA last year while the Strip slipped about 5 percent, and in the enterprise value math that runs from the 2008 Apollo and TPG buyout through the brutal 2015 bankruptcy to today.
Then Culture Corner (55:02) on Jack Ryan: Ghost War, the John Krasinski reboot that hit number one globally on Prime with Wendell Pierce and Michael Kelly back in the fold. The guys get into the TikTok theory that the whole thing was funded by Dubai tourism, the debate over the greatest Tom Clancy movie ever made with The Hunt for Red October as the benchmark, and why one host insists he was only resting his eyes.

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Hosted by Jason Sanjana & Kevin Eckhardt
Guest: Michael Gatto (Partner, Silver Point Capital)
Guest: Kyle Owusu (Director of Credit Research, Octus)
Produced and Edited by Tanya Hubbard
A Production of The Octus Podcast Network
Link to what we talked about:
The Credit Investor's Handbook: Leveraged Loans, High Yield Bonds, and Distressed Debt (Wiley Finance) Links - amzn.to/4vne6Oz 

What Can a Credit Analyst Learn from the Rise and Fall of First Brands - 
https://bit.ly/3SehLzy 

What Questions Should Allocators Ask When Evaluating Direct Lending Managers  - https://bit.ly/4enYRNO 
 
00:00:05 Cold open and the fine print
00:02:12 Michael Gatto on teaching and Silver Point
00:19:43 What a credit analyst learns from First Brands
00:30:53 What allocators should ask direct lending managers
00:38:35 Caesars goes private
00:39:37 Kyle Owusu on the Fertitta deal
00:55:02 Culture Corner and Jack Ryan Ghost War
01:03:25 Wrap and close

Some weeks the news is weird. This week it is weird, litigious, and somehow involves 420,000 uprooted peach trees.

Jason Sanjana & Kevin Eckhardt open with Ryan Cohen's unsolicited, non binding offer to acquire eBay for $125 a share in a cash and stock deal (04:16), a bid that valued the target at roughly $56 billion from a company with a $12 billion market cap. Cohen showed up on Squawk Box in a leather jacket (05:33), could not explain the math to Andrew Ross Sorkin, and watched the stock drop 10% in real time. Michael Burry sold his entire position the next day. eBay called the bid "neither credible nor attractive." The hosts disagree on whether Cohen is a visionary or a chaos agent, and the debate is genuinely good.

From there (14:30), the conversation moves to Del Monte Foods, a 130 plus year old company that filed Chapter 11 in July 2025 after an aggressive LME bought the company nine months. Asset sales closed in March 2026, with Fresh Del Monte, Pacific Coast Producers, and B&G Foods splitting the business for roughly $499 million combined. Judge Michael Kaplan's ruling on non pro rata DIP roll ups is the legal crux, and Kevin's conflicted feelings about it are some of the best radio on this episode. Also, 420,000 peach trees are being ripped out of California orchards. Producer Tanya called it a crisis, and she is not wrong.

The episode closes with the debut of the Clout Audit Tribunal (24:08), Neal Katyal's TED Talk, Harvey AI, and the Supreme Court bar's collective meltdown over a Burning Man photo (31:16), before landing on Your Friends and Neighbors Season 2 (38:42), Jon Hamm, James Marsden's Owen Ashe, a deer shot dead on a beach, and the show's running thesis that rich people behaving badly in expensive houses is one of TV's most reliable pleasures.

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Hosted by Jason Sanjana & Kevin Eckhardt

Produced and Edited by Tanya Hubbard

A Production of The Octus Podcast Network

(00:00) - Cold open, host intro, and the fine print

(02:30) - Kars for Kids and the California restraining order

(04:16) - GameStop’s unsolicited bid for eBay

(05:33) - Ryan Cohen on Squawk Box and the math problem

(11:30) - Is meme stock M&A just modern corporate finance

(17:30) - The peach tree crisis, 420,000 trees and $550M in canceled contracts

(20:00) - Judge Kaplan’s DIP roll up ruling explained

(24:08) - The Clout Audit Tribunal, Neal Katyal’s TED Talk and Harvey AI

(33:30) - Jason and Kevin pitch their own TED talks

(38:42) - Your Friends and Neighbors Season 2, Owen Ashe, Coop, and a dead deer

(48:00) - Wrap and close

Some companies die because the math was never going to work. Spirit, AMC, and fire truck pricing all make that case differently.

Jason Sanjana and Kevin Eckhardt open with an emergency segment on Spirit Airlines (02:31), which ceased all operations on May 2nd after 34 years, 17,000 jobs, and a wind-down that happened overnight. Kevin, who covered the case at Octus, walks through why the Twitter narrative blaming the Biden DOJ is missing about 90% of the actual story. The Trump administration floated a $500 million bailout, but when the DIP lenders said no, it evaporated. The hosts debate whether Spirit was ever going to survive, why the JetBlue merger is a red herring, and what the crowdfunding campaign to "buy Spirit" actually tells you about the internet. Then (19:03), Krishan Sutharshana, senior distressed debt analyst at Octus, joins to walk through AMC. The largest movie theater chain in the world has raised nearly $4 billion in equity since the pandemic and still cannot generate positive free cash flow. Krishan explains the LME, the $3 billion maturity wall, the streaming window compression, and why the box office needs to hit $10 billion before AMC breaks even.

From there (36:19), Kevin breaks down how private equity rolled up the fire truck market, with Rev Group sitting on $4.4 billion in unfilled orders while prices have risen 5x and used trucks jumped 62% in a year. The show closes with the debut of The Parent Trap (42:10), a new segment about the things you do for your parents.  Jason spent a long weekend helping his parents move out of the Pittsburgh house they lived in for 40 years. Kevin produced a photo of his father on the field alongside O.J. Simpson and Dan Marino, which raises more questions than it answers. And the show's first ever mystery write-in arrives: an orchid dispute at an assisted living facility from a listener who is definitely not anyone on the production team. The hosts took it extremely seriously and provided the full legal analysis it deserved.

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Hosted by Jason Sanjana & Kevin Eckhardt

Guest: Krishan Sutharshana (Senior Distressed Debt Analyst, Octus)

Produced and Edited by Tanya Hubbard

A Production of The Octus Podcast Network

(00:05) - Cold open and host intro

(02:31) - Spirit Airlines ceases operations

(07:06) - The $500 million bailout that wasn’t

(13:07) - JetBlue, Frontier, and the revisionist history

(19:03) - AMC and the box office recovery question

(20:36) - Krishan Sutharshana on AMC’s capital structure

(23:55) - Four billion in equity, still burning cash

(26:16) - The 2024 LME and the maturity wall

(31:03) - Streaming windows and what kills theaters

(42:10) - The Parent Trap: Pittsburgh, OJ, and orchids

(51:37) - Wrap and close