Goldman holds talks on $5bn A&E for Proofpoint

Borrowed time — Fervour and finance of football debt

As the 2026 World Cup enters its final week, fans are waiting to see whether football will come home this time — or whether it will be another four-year wait. Meanwhile, we’ve looked beyond the pitch at the game’s financial issues. Here, too, is a story of towering ambitions and perfervid emotions — one whose fate is intertwined less with 90-minute scores and penalty kicks than with buccaneering businesspeople and vast sums of borrowed money.

The Default Notice — An uptier by any other name… is probably permitted

Acclaimed American poet Carl Sandburg once said, “If the facts are against you, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If the law and the facts are against you, pound the table and yell like hell.”

Introducing 9fin DIP financing database

9fin's DIP financing database is a structured, searchable database covering mid-market and large bankruptcies, with every key term extracted and normalized so you can actually compare them.

Female-owned businesses less likely to emerge from bankruptcy, study finds

Female-owned businesses are more likely to be pushed into liquidation and fail to emerge from bankruptcy than their male-owned counterparts, according to new research, in a sign that gender gaps in the corporate world extend to the end of a company’s lifecycle.

Taking the Credit — Seeing what you want to see

Is it a bat or a butterfly? As ever, it depends who you ask. Private credit has become a financial markets edition of the Rorschach test: for every declaration of health and explanation of a maturing asset class undergoing growing pains, there are fresh cockroaches unearthing themselves and further regulatory interventions warning of echoes with the 2008 GFC.

Europe IG Wrap — Bastille Day rush tails off as oil prices rise