Marc Lasry, chairman and CEO, Avenue Capital Group
Much has already been written about the global market meltdown of 2008, the ongoing massive deleveraging and asset re-pricing, and the long-term effects this may have on economic redevelopment and recovery. Against this backdrop, the question on everyone’s mind is: “When is the bottom?” Yet amid this carnage, and a recession that will persist through 2009 and likely longer, we are beginning to see the first stages of recovery in certain sections of the corporate credit markets. For those investors with the ability to effectively apply both fundamental and quantitative analysis in the identification of ‘good company/bad balance sheet’ situations, and also have long-term capital, this distressed cycle will present the best opportunity I have seen in over 23 years of investing in this space.
There are three main reasons this distressed cycle is unique...