Day In The Life of a Private Credit Deal Monkey

A Message from Cognitive Credit:

Self-service access to Restricted Access Issuers has arrived on Cognitive Credit.

Tired of managing your private documents manually? You can now discover hundreds of restricted access names across US & European Bond and Loan universes - including 144A issuers in the US High Yield Index - all from the convenience of our easy-to-use web application.

Simply search for a name, upload the relevant documents and we’ll generate a ready-to-use model within minutes – simplifying your restricted data access struggles and eliminating hours of model-building for your team.

It’s simple, secure and fully compliant.

• Self-service: Search, access & manage issuers in one service

• Fully compliant: Our team verifies every document before granting access

• Permanent access: Never lose access to your private documents in-app

• 100% secure: All documents stored in an encrypted team-wide digital library

To see it in action, go here:

Welcome back!

I’m excited to have a guest interview/post with Unhinged Capital!

I always appreciate seeing hyper niche, detail-oriented memes, so i appreciate what Unhinged has done so far.

This one from Unhinged is a favorite of mine:

Two quick programming notes before today’s piece: Effective, Sunday April 27th, I’m merging in The Wall Street Rollup into the typical weekly newsletter cadence. We’ve been operating the newsletters separately, but given the fact that a lot of my newsletter focus is on The Wall Street Rollup, it’s time to integrate it into the flow of existing HYH Newsletter readers. You’ll be able to opt out of Wall Street Rollup specific posts at any time.

Secondly, I put out a HYH Premium piece last week on a massive list of Credit shops in NYC, this is part IV of my NYC City Guide pieces.

Let’s get into it:

Unhinged Capital’s Guest Piece:

Private Credit Playbook: Surviving Your First Year

Congratulations. You read every single WSO thread, memorized all 400 investment banking technical questions answers, and caught a break in your interviews with a “pass” for being an adequately social human. You’ve made it into private credit. Your parents have no idea what you do, you tell your friends you work in private equity, and your LinkedIn is now a buzzword salad of terms like "opportunistic direct lending" and "illiquid high yield structured solutions." Welcome to the hottest corner of finance.

Now, the bad news: you have no idea what you’re doing. But that’s okay. No one really does at first. Here’s a playbook to help you survive your first year, avoid embarrassment, and maybe even impress a Partner along the way (remember me in your will when you do).

1. Master the "Nod of Understanding"

In every IC meeting, there comes a moment when some senior Partner says something like, "It seems the back-leverage facility pref structure here gives us an attractive attach/detach." Do you understand what that means? FUCK no. But that’s where the nod comes in. Slight incline of the head, furrowed brow, maybe a soft "Mhmm." Perfect. You are now perceived as wise and contemplative beyond your years. And best of all? All you did was agree with some musing of some crusty guy called Dave on IC. That’s called outsourced thinking.