Work
Stuck capital,
unstuck.
Strategic mandates on positions that have stopped moving — defaulted credit, legacy LP interests, illiquid holdings, tax-loss disposals. We are appointed via assignment or power of attorney, take legal and operational control, and drive the resolution to a defensible exit.
The engagement
Strategic
Mandates
A bespoke engagement for a single position, a portfolio of legacy assets, or a workout where control is the blocker. We are appointed via assignment or power of attorney, take legal and operational control, and drive the resolution to a defensible exit — sale, settlement, restructure, or write-down. We will also execute clean dollar disposals for sellers who simply need to crystallise the tax loss on a dead position.
Mandates are custom-structured per situation. We do not apply a one-size-fits-all framework, because no two stuck positions look the same. What stays constant: we take control early, we do not wait for market consensus on price, and we report honestly on what is achievable.
Some of the positions we take on will be worth nothing. We say that plainly because it is true, and because the alternative — hedging what we will actually do — is the same failure of discipline that left the position stuck in the first place.
Where it gets trapped
The capital stack.
Where in the stack a claim sits determines what it is worth when things go wrong, how fast a recovery can move, and how much leverage the holder has. The table below is the first thing we ask about any stuck position.
| Tier | Claim types | Characteristics | Typical outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior secured | Revolvers, term loans, first-lien notes, senior real-estate mortgages, aircraft ABS. | First-lien, collateralised, covenant-lite or tight. Recovery usually substantial and relatively fast when enforcement is available. | Usually substantial |
| Junior / second-lien secured | Second-lien notes, junior bridge loans, mezz real estate, aircraft finance. | Intercreditor agreements govern waterfall. Title complications and residual-value risk determine outcome. | Partial, negotiated |
| Unsecured claims | Senior notes, trade debt, critical-vendor claims, legal judgments, unsecured aircraft leases. | Unsecured bonds, vendor claims, maintenance reserves, subordinated guarantees. Recovery depends entirely on restructuring outcome. | Material but capped |
| Subordinated debt | Convertibles, mezzanine, developer loans, aviation mezz. | PIK toggles, equity kickers, standstill terms, performance-based recoveries. | Discount to par, sometimes zero |
| Preferred equity | Preference shares, orphaned LP interests, aircraft leasing equity, side pockets. | Liquidation preference, board-control rights, expired GP mandates, off-platform co-investments. | Nominal in most cases |
| Common equity | Shares, options, warrants, sponsor equity, co-investments. | Residual claim, often out-of-the-money, frequently underwater with no voting power. | Zero in most workouts |
Descriptions reflect the typical shape of each tier. Actual outcomes depend on specific circumstances, jurisdictional enforcement, counterparty dynamics, and what the cleanup reveals about the underlying. We do not publish numeric recovery ranges because outcomes are mandate-specific, not portfolio-index averages.
Who holds it
Even the best holders get stuck.
Stuck positions are not a sign of bad stewardship. They are what happens when mandate, timing, or structure makes an asset hard to resolve in the ordinary course.
Banks and credit funds
Defaulted loans and non-performing exposures under regulatory pressure to write down. The barrier is usually reputational, not economic — an asset that functions on the book can still be impossible to resolve internally.
PE and VC funds
Legacy equity and SPVs in funds past their stated term. No exit path, fund life effectively over, remaining LPs split on how to wind down. GP attention has moved to the next vintage.
Family offices
Co-investments and side pockets that came through a relationship and have never been actively managed since. No internal team working the resolution. Often the right answer is to exit, not to hold.
Corporates
Subsidiaries, JV stakes, real estate, receivables that are no longer core. Governance or politics block action — the CEO doesn't want to write down a decision, the CFO inherits the mess.
High net-worth individuals
Direct investments that looked good five or ten years ago and are now illiquid with no obvious buyer. The sponsor has stopped replying. The position is an emotional burden as much as a financial one.
How we do the work
Control first. Value second.
We do not wait for an asset to become investable. We take control early and build the resolution plan from there. Four steps, in order, applied to every engagement.
Step 1
Clean up ownership
Consolidate holders. Reset cap tables. Simplify the legal structure. Most stuck positions are stuck because nobody has clear standing to act — that is the first thing to fix.
Step 2
Fix the stack
Renegotiate debt. Enforce rights. Rework governance terms. Where there is a covenant, pull it. Where there is a dormant claim, file. Structural levers exist in most cases; somebody has to use them.
Step 3
Align the people
Replace management if it has failed. Fix broken mandates. Resolve disputes between co-investors, between holders and counsel, between the old sponsor and the remaining LPs. People are usually the binding constraint.
Step 4
Design a way out
Sell the asset. Pay down the liabilities. Package for a secondary. Liquidate for nominal and close the legal entity. The right exit depends on what the cleanup reveals — it is rarely the exit that was assumed on day one.
Recent mandates
Three archetypes.
The shape of the work varies. The discipline does not. These are anonymised for confidentiality, dated by quarter only, and written without dollar figures — specifics are discussed with principals under mutual NDA.
Secondary equity
A private-company block at a discount
A top-tier growth-stage equity was trading on the secondary market at a ~30% discount to a recent strategic entry. We sourced the block through broker relationships, warehoused it in a BVI SPV to keep the underlying buyer off the cap table, and distributed interests to ten underlying investors inside two weeks. Year-end 2024 audit marked the block +70% over entry.
Debt workout
A non-performing senior loan
A senior loan was in default and the sponsor had stopped returning calls. We were contributed the claim via a bespoke assignment, hired local counsel, filed for enforcement, and negotiated with the other creditors from a position of standing. The borrower's counsel called within four weeks. We settled at the mark and distributed in Q4.
Legacy LP
A fund past its term
A family office held an LP interest in a fund that had gone past its stated term. The GP was non-responsive. We were assigned the interest, joined the LP advisory committee, and forced a wind-down conversation with the remaining investors. The asset was liquidated and the last distribution landed a year later. The client wrote off any fund-level expectation and was made whole on the underlying.
Discipline
What we won’t take on.
Saying no to the wrong mandates is how we stay useful on the right ones. We turn down more than we accept. If your situation falls into one of the categories below, we are not the right shop — and we will tell you so quickly.
Single-position trades with no recovery thesis
If the only plan is to wait, we are not the right party. There are better brokers for holding.
Retail-scale portfolios
We work with family offices, funds, and corporates. We are not set up for individual HNW portfolios below institutional scale.
Jurisdictions we cannot defend in
We take mandates where our counsel can act. That means Commonwealth jurisdictions, the US via local counsel, and selective European markets. We do not pretend to operate globally.
Engagements without legal control
Advisory-only mandates without assignment, power of attorney, or equivalent rights do not work for what we do. If the holder wants advice, there are good advisors; we are not one of them.
Positions where the client wants guarantees
Some assets are worth nothing. We do not guarantee recoveries. If a guarantee is the requirement, the mandate is misaligned from day one.
The honest close
Hope is not a strategy.
We make no promises about what any given asset is worth. Some of them are worth nothing, and the sooner that is acknowledged the faster the capital can be redeployed into something that does work.
What we do promise: we will take control, do the work, report honestly at each step, and tell you when to stop. That is the engagement. It is not glamorous and it is not a guarantee. It is what separates a resolution from a slow write-down.