Carlos Hernanz

Arini, the hedge fund started by ex-Credit Suisse distressed trader Hamza Lemssouguer, launched in 2022 with about $1 billion in AUM The fund grew to run roughly $22 billion, with their flagship vehicle managing $7.5 billion as of July 2026. About 33% of fund vehicles are in CLOs, and another $4 billion raised for direct lending The fund's strategy was simple. Make bets on highly distressed businesses to extract premium yield vs. the market. While most credit managers lean towards being highly diversified due to the asymmetric payouts in debt markets, Arini took a different approach by taking concentrated levered bets on their positions This worked until it doesn't, and this year has been a rough journey for the fund. Bloomberg recently reported that their flagship fund is -26% YTD through October 2026 Here are the 3 positions where Arini has lost the most dollars. 1. Altice International Altice International is Patrick Drahi's holding company for telecom operations in Portugal, DR and Israel. It carried roughly €8.9bn of senior secured debt and €675mm of senior notes against €1.5bn of LTM EBITDA. The two crown jewel assets in the business were Altice Caribbean (DR business) and the Portugal subsidiary. The two combined generated 75% of revenue and 80% of EBITDA for the entire business. In November 2025, both of these were moved out of the restricted group. Altice Caribbean was designated to be an unrestricted subsidiary, and the company then raised €750 million of third-party capital secured against the unpledged assets In July 2026, Altice then moved to sell the HOT Mobile Israel business for €356 million, leaving nothing of substance behind for the lenders. Altice International's secured 2028 and 2029 bonds fell 6-8 points in the mid-60s, and the €675 million of senior notes fell 14 points to 16 cents on the dollar. By October, even the senior secured bonds were trading below 50 cents. The lender group sent a default notice on 2028 notes, claiming that the €5 billion of intercompany loans and the unrestricted designations extracted substantially all value out of the business, and Altice International never made the change of control offer that would refinance the debt By August, Arini and Silver Point were fighting other lenders for priority in the capital structure. Negotiating group also includes Diameter, Invesco, King Street, Sona and Elliott Management 2. Aston Martin Arini owned the distressed car company's 10% senior secured notes due 2029. In July 2026, Aston borrowed £550 million from HPS in the form of a £450 million SONIA + 675 senior term loan and a £100 million delayed draw term loan. The HPS loan was secured on assets placed in a newly created unrestricted subsidiary, while the existing notes that Arini sat in were secured by a pledge over the operating company's shares. Aston Martin is currently a cash-flow-negative business with £340 million of cash against £250 million of LFCF burn per year. Shareholders have added £2 billion of equity since 2020, and the company recently sold its F1 team stake and naming rights for £156 million combined. By October, the secured notes that Arini invested in were trading at 47 cents on the dollar 3. Brightspeed In 2022, Apollo bought Lumen's legacy copper phone business for $7.5 billion with the plan of building fiber passings. By 2026, it was clear that the deal assumptions were far too lofty, with actual revenue per home passing sitting at roughly 33% of the original budget Operating cash flow was -$2.2 billion in 2025, and cash balance at the company fell from $2.4 billion at year-end to $1.2 billion in June 2026 By 2Q26, the company issued a going concern warning. Reportedly, Apollo and PJT attempted to raise an ABS tranche secured by fiber subscription cash flows that would rank ahead of the existing lenders but struggled to find any buyers Per reporting from the Wall Street Journal, Apollo confirmed that they are not willing to add more capital in a business that likely needs to raise an additional $3 billion to get through 2027 The Financial Times reported that Arini held substantial exposure in the company, but the tranche of debt held isn't public. Regardless, the company's debt has traded down significantly and Arini is feeling the pain of unrealized losses from their position Based on the latest reporting, there have been rumors that a Chapter 11 filing could come as soon as December of this year.