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An affiliate of Mark Walter’s investment firm Guggenheim Partners started buying debt issued by the group’s asset management unit this week, propping up the price of a loan that just last week changed hands at distressed levels.
The $1.2bn loan was quoted at 84 cents on the dollar on Friday after the Guggenheim affiliate began making purchases of the debt in recent days, according to people briefed on the activity. The purchases were executed through Bank of America, which oversees trading in the security, they added.
The debt, which provides one of the only gauges of market sentiment of the privately held investment firm, had plunged as much as 30 per cent this month and last week was quoted below 70 cents on the dollar.
Guggenheim and BofA declined to comment.
The focus on the loan comes after two insurance entities controlled by Walter’s TWG Group disclosed that US prosecutors were probing whether they properly labelled $20bn of assets tied to other parts of the billionaire’s business empire.
Guggenheim is a separate entity from TWG but both are led by Walter. TWG has previously said it was “aware of and co-operating with the investigation”.
The loan, which was issued by a Guggenheim entity known as GIH Borrower, had fallen in price last week following a call Guggenheim executives held with lenders, the FT has previously reported.
Executives on the call discussed a 2025 whistleblower report into Guggenheim Private Investments, a unit that advises the asset manager’s clients on private credit deals. They also told lenders that some of the private investment unit’s clients were affiliated with Walter’s wider businesses.
The firm has previously said it had provided the whistleblower allegations to its external auditor, which later “issued unqualified audit opinions for the relevant consolidated financial statements for audit years 2024 and 2025”.
Bloomberg earlier reported that Guggenheim had told lenders it planned to buy back some of the debt.
