Hedge fund manager Adam Schwartz got rich in 2020 predicting the corporate bond market’s boom and bust. Now he’s staking most of his fund—and his own cash—on another bet that companies coming up against record debt maturities will spark a wave of defaults.
That wager is at the heart of the $40 million Black Bear Value Partners fund that Schwartz, a former director at Fir Tree, runs from Boca Raton, Florida. The bulk of his portfolio is given over to a handful of companies bucking the overall trend and holding very little—or no—debt. The rest is in short positions against parts of credit markets that Schwartz thinks are due for a correction.