Keep pulling the thread on Andrew Milgram.
EBITDA for U.S. middle market companies has declined by approximately 20% to 25% since 2019.
Net profits after tax for U.S. middle market companies have declined by almost 200% over the post-COVID measurement period and have been consistently negative for the past two years.
In 2023, nearly 25% of the U.S. middle market companies in MarbleGate's dataset were unable to meet their debt service coverage requirements.
Business bankruptcies in the U.S. reached a 14-year high in 2024.
Based on rising debt service failures, business bankruptcy filings in the U.S. are expected to remain persistent or increase in 2025.
A tariff rate above 5% or 6% is predicted to have a devastating impact on the margins and debt service capacity of U.S. middle market companies.
MarbleGate ultimately deployed over $600 million to acquire more than 4,000 of the 13,587 total taxi medallion assets in New York City.
MarbleGate recently took its entire New York City taxi operation public.
The U.S. government initially anticipated the Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) program would cost $50 billion, but it had already paid out $200 billion about a year into the program.
The 2011 'Guidelines on Leveraged Lending' from the federal government pushed high-leverage credit out of the traditional banking system, directly enabling the rapid growth of the private credit market.
According to Fitch, approximately 82% of the private credit market is composed of loans with a credit quality of single B- or lower.
Despite the largest portion of private credit being CCC-equivalent according to Fitch, most private credit managers report default rates below 1.5%, suggesting defaults are being intentionally deferred or disguised.