Louis R. Dienes

January was the structure warning. April was the borrower warning. June was the liquidity warning. July brought the same story to public markets and AI.

The New Puck Website Hi friends, BIG NEWS—The Puck (brought to you by CMBG Advisors) finally has a home online! Our brand-new website is officially live at www.thepuckpodcast.com—take a look and let us know what you think! Here's what you'll find: ► YouTube...

An Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors is a process in which an insolvent company voluntarily transfers its transferable, nonexempt assets to an independent assignee, who liquidates them as a fiduciary for creditors and distributes the proceeds by legal priority. This is the explanation every founder should have before the crisis.

Organization in the first 48 hours is not an administrative preference—it is asset protection.

Delaware just modernized one of the oldest tools in restructuring, and the change matters well beyond Delaware's borders because so many U.S. companies are organized under Delaware law.

The United States retains formidable advantages in space, but technological leadership is not self-executing. It must be financed, supplied, coordinated, and sustained.

The Puck Newsletter The Next Frontier is Not Optional July 2026 Why America's economic discipline, industrial base, and space strategy now belong in the same conversation THIS MONTH'S THESIS We have been talking about private credit, debt, deficits, and...

When it fits, an ABC is generally faster, less expensive, more private, and more in your control than bankruptcy.

The important question is not whether large private-credit managers can manage redemption requests. It is what tighter liquidity and closer valuation scrutiny will mean for the companies financed beneath them.

The Puck Newsletter Where Markets, Policy, and the Real Economy Converge June 2026 The Gates are Not The Story. They are the Tell. Private credit was sold as stability. What we are seeing now is delayed price discovery, stale collateral, and the first public...

When it fits, an ABC is generally faster, less expensive, more private, and more in your control than bankruptcy.

Debt can create productive capacity or conceal a bill. The difference is whether borrowing finances a durable return or substitutes for decisions that remain unavoidable.

The Puck Newsletter May 2026 This month I'm doing something different. Most issues of The Puck are about what's happening in the credit markets, the venture world, or the wider machinery of restructuring. This one is about something I've been working on...

A mid-sized professional services firm came to CMBG with revenue down 22%, fewer than four months of cash on hand, and a cost structure built for a larger business. Twelve months later, the firm was profitable on a smaller revenue base, operating with $4.2 million in annualized overhead reduction, and had retained roughly 88% of the people who mattered most.

The Puck Newsletter Where Markets, Policy, and the Real Economy Converge April 2026 The Golden Age is Over ~ Now We Find Out What Private Credit is Made Of Default rates are climbing to levels the modern private-credit era has never seen. Payment-in-kind...

CMBG coordinated a public Article 9 sale for a private lender after a logistics borrower defaulted. The assets were marketed nationally, sold for 40% above appraised value, and generated a 95% recovery on the outstanding loan balance.

With no cash to support a bankruptcy filing and no workable restructuring thesis, the senior secured lender chose a public Article 9 sale. CMBG Advisors ran the process on a 30-day timeline, delivered the assets through a credit bid, and achieved the same practical outcome a liquidation Chapter 11 would have produced at a fraction of the cost.

Instead of moving into court, the company used a disciplined out-of-court workout. CMBG aligned the lender, addressed vendor pressure, and paired the liability-side reset with operating changes that returned the business to break-even within five months.

The receivership stabilized a family-owned manufacturer long enough to preserve value, retain key employees, and complete a strategic sale. The result was full payment to the secured creditor and a meaningful recovery for unsecured creditors.

With no bridge round available and cash burn accelerating, the company moved into an ABC rather than a bankruptcy filing. CMBG ran the wind-down, marketed the assets, and completed a sale of the core technology and customer relationships in under six weeks.

CMBG supported a medical device manufacturer through a Chapter 11 process by helping manage cash, negotiate with vendors, and support both a $10 million DIP facility and a 363 sale. The result preserved 60 jobs and produced stronger-than-expected recoveries.

CMBG ran a voluntary wind-down for a fashion brand with $6 million in inventory and valuable trademark assets. The process monetized inventory, licensed the IP, satisfied secured obligations, and paid a modest dividend to trade creditors without litigation or a formal insolvency proceeding.

The Puck Newsletter February 2026 Structural Compression: The Slow Bleed That Keeps Us Busy Every cycle has its narrative. Some arrive as detonations — 1929, 2008, 2020 — moments when liquidity vanishes, institutions fail, and policymakers scramble to prevent...

The Puck Newsletter January 2026 Strain to Slippage January Signals from the Shadow System Last month we described a slow unraveling: leverage at the margins, and the quiet return of discipline after a decade of abundance. The evidence was...

The Puck Newsletter December 2025 The Slow Unraveling: Why 2026 Will Require Discipline, Not Drama The economy doesn’t break all at once. It weakens as fields do when they’ve been over-tilled: slowly, predictably, and according to laws older than any central...

The Puck Newsletter November 2025 The Perfect Storm: Truth, Debt, Inflation, and the Coming Recession INTRODUCTION: THE TWO CRISES THAT ARE REALLY ONE America is headed into a recession not just because of layoffs, tariffs, soaring debt, and cracks in shadow...

The Puck Newsletter September 2025 The New Manhattan Project for the 21st Century: Meeting China's Challenge with U.S. and Allied Innovation When the history of the early 21st century is written, one central story will dominate: the contest for technological...

The Puck Newsletter August 2025 From Trauma to Empathy: Why Stepping Back Can Bring Us Closer The Distance Between Pain and Compassion In moments of war, terror, or personal attack, empathy for “the other side” is rarely our first impulse. Trauma narrows the...

The Puck Newsletter June 2025 🚀 The puck is moving—are you ready? Debt, Financial Repression, and the Return of Hidden Inflation The U.S. economy is entering dangerous territory. Deficits are ballooning, inflation is mutating, and monetary policy is quietly...

The Puck Newsletter May 2025 🚀 The puck is moving—are you ready? The Debt Danger Zone: Are We There Yet? In their landmark 2009 book This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff warned that when a...

The Puck Newsletter April 2025 🚀 The puck is moving—are you ready? The Hidden Inflation Risk of the Next Financial Rescue The global economy is suddenly caught in a perilous one-two punch reminiscent of the early 1930s. A dramatic stock market plunge in...

The Puck Newsletter February 2025 🚀 The puck is moving—are you ready? Navigating Fiscal Challenges: Financial Repression and Historical Parallels The Fiscal Reality We Can No Longer Ignore The United States is facing a debt crisis of historic proportions...

The Puck Newsletter December 2024 Navigating Economic Realities We Called It: It Was Always the Economy As predicted, Donald Trump secured the presidency, driven by widespread dissatisfaction with the economic outlook under the prior administration...

The Puck Newsletter October 2024 A Middle Class in Crisis ~ The 2024 Election and Why It Matters As we approach the 2024 presidential election, the American middle class finds itself caught in a web of rising costs and suffering under the b

The Puck Newsletter August 2024 In the lead-up to the 2007 Great Recession, I remember whispers around the dinner table. While things seemed good, there was always a lingering question. Were things too good? Was the run-up in housing prices

The Puck Newsletter May 2024 At a recent seminar focusing on debt restructuring within the real estate sector, I delved into the intricate financial challenges plaguing the industry. While the seminar provided valuable insights and networking opportunities...

The Puck Newsletter February 2024 This past Sunday FED Chair Jerome Powell appeared on 60 Minutes to discuss the current state of the American economy. I’d recommend a watch if you are interested. But a few things are worth noting. First

The Puck Newsletter November 2023 A Bit of a Departure Bridging Divides within the context of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: To Our Puck Community – Over the past few years, you have listened and read as we have tried our best to cover t