How far do you have to go to get away from the global credit ecosystem? Pretty far, it turns out.
It took less than 24 hours for leveraged loans to intrude upon my sabbatical.
I’d flown to Spain with my bike, to cycle the Camino de Santiago in reverse. The halfway point was a remote cabin in rural Asturias, and the final destination was the foodie paradise of San Sebastián. I pictured it as a retreat into hermetic isolation followed by a high-consumption reemergence into society.
I put my bike back together, pedaled into town, and sat down for dinner. Distrusting Google Maps, I turned to Komoot to plot my route for the first day. And there, on the app’s loading page, was a design feature I hadn’t noticed before: a line of text saying “Made with 💚 by Bending Spoons.”
Just me, the open road, and a leveraged Italian software conglomerate
I already knew Komoot was owned by Bending Spoons, because 9fin has coveredthis acquisitive Italian company since it first tapped the leveraged loan market in 2025. At the time it felt like quite a risky credit, but it passed a big milestone this summer when it...
