Marathon Taps Alex Howell to Lead European Credit Push

Marathon Asset Management just handed its European credit operation to someone who's been watching the continent's distressed markets tighten for over a decade. Alex Howell, a senior portfolio manager who joined the firm in 2013, was promoted Monday to partner and Head of European Credit — a role that positions him to steer one of Marathon's most active regional strategies as the firm manages roughly $24 billion across credit, private equity, and real assets.

The move isn't just a title bump. It's a signal that Marathon, founded by Bruce Richards and Louis Hanover in 1998, is doubling down on European distressed debt at a moment when default rates are creeping higher, covenant-lite structures are unraveling, and regulators are forcing banks to clean up legacy portfolios.

Howell's been building toward this since he walked through Marathon's doors 12 years ago. He's worked across the firm's flagship opportunistic credit funds, co-managed portfolios with Richards himself, and spent the last few years overseeing European investments that span corporate restructurings, asset-backed situations, and special situations lending. Now he's running the whole European credit book.

Bruce Richards, who remains Marathon's co-founder and co-CIO, called Howell's promotion a reflection of his judgment and leadership — the kind that matters when you're navigating broken capital structures in jurisdictions where bankruptcy law varies wildly from the U.S. playbook.

Marathon isn't running a plain-vanilla European CLO or high-yield bond fund. The firm's credit platform is built around complexity: distressed debt, non-performing loans, dislocation trades, special situations that require operational engagement, not just passive ownership.

In Europe, that's meant buying into corporate restructurings where creditor committees drive outcomes, acquiring portfolios of stressed real estate loans from banks under ECB pressure, and funding businesses locked out of traditional capital markets. It's the kind of work that requires local expertise — lawyers who know German insolvency law, bankers who've closed deals in Milan, accountants who can parse French corporate governance.

Howell's been embedded in that world since well before joining Marathon. He started his career at Credit Suisse's investment banking division in London, then moved to Intermediate Capital Group, one of Europe's largest alternative credit managers, where he cut his teeth on direct lending and mezzanine finance. By the time he landed at Marathon in 2013, he'd already lived through the European sovereign debt crisis and watched how distressed markets behave when central banks flood the zone with liquidity.

That experience matters now more than it did five years ago. European credit markets are facing a different kind of stress — not a sudden crisis, but a slow grind of overleveraged companies, rising rates, sticky inflation, and weakening consumer demand. The ECB has stopped buying everything in sight. Banks are selling down portfolios. And covenant-lite loans issued in 2020 and 2021 are starting to crack.

Marathon's timing here isn't accidental. European leveraged loan default rates hit 4.2% in Q1 2026, up from 2.1% a year earlier, according to LCD data. That's still below the 10%+ peaks seen in 2009 and 2020, but the trajectory is clear. More importantly, the composition of defaults is shifting toward mid-market companies with floating-rate debt — exactly the kind of situations where Marathon has an edge.

The firm's European credit strategy has historically focused on three buckets: corporate restructurings, real estate debt, and asset-backed opportunities. In corporate restructurings, Marathon often acts as a lender of last resort or a buyer of deeply discounted debt that can be converted to equity in a bankruptcy process. In real estate, it's been active buying non-performing loan portfolios from European banks — a market that's opened up again as property valuations soften. In asset-backed, it's targeting dislocations in consumer credit, auto loans, and trade receivables.

None of this is flashy. It's grunt work — due diligence-heavy, lawyer-intensive, relationship-dependent. But it's also where Marathon has made money for decades, and where Howell's operational background gives him credibility with both limited partners and the distressed companies Marathon invests in.

Source: LCD, S&P Global, Marathon Asset Management investor materials

European banks are under pressure — not crisis pressure, but regulatory and capital pressure — to reduce non-core exposures. That's created a steady flow of portfolio sales: stressed corporate loans, non-performing mortgages, consumer credit books that no longer fit a bank's strategic focus. Marathon's been an active buyer, often partnering with regional servicers who can manage the operational complexity of collecting on distressed assets or working through restructurings.

Howell takes over a European credit operation that's already scaled. Marathon manages about $24 billion firmwide, with a meaningful chunk deployed in European strategies. The firm doesn't break out AUM by geography publicly, but investor letters and regulatory filings suggest the European book represents 30-40% of the credit platform — call it $7-9 billion under Howell's purview.

That includes positions across capital structures: first-lien loans, second-lien mezzanine, unsecured bonds, and equity stakes acquired through debt conversions. It also includes co-investment vehicles where Marathon partners with LPs on large, concentrated bets — the kind that require board seats and operational involvement.

Marathon's European team is based primarily in London, with investment professionals, legal counsel, and portfolio operations staff embedded locally. The firm's approach has always been hands-on: it doesn't just buy distressed debt and wait for a restructuring to play out. It participates in creditor negotiations, proposes restructuring plans, and occasionally steps into interim management roles when companies need operational stabilization.

That's where Howell's background becomes critical. He's not just a trader or an analyst. He's spent years working with management teams, creditor committees, and restructuring advisors to figure out what a distressed business is actually worth and how to extract value without destroying it in the process.

Richards, in the announcement, highlighted Howell's judgment and leadership — words that matter in a business where knowing when to push for liquidation versus when to fund a turnaround is the difference between a 50% IRR and a total loss.

Marathon's European credit wins haven't been widely publicized — the firm doesn't issue press releases every time it closes a distressed debt trade — but investor letters and public filings offer glimpses. In 2023, Marathon participated in the restructuring of a mid-market European logistics company, converting unsecured debt to equity and funding a working capital facility that kept the business operational through a rough freight cycle. In 2024, it bought a portfolio of non-performing Italian mortgages from a regional bank at a steep discount, then partnered with a local servicer to recover value through asset sales and loan modifications.

These aren't headline deals. They're grinding, multi-year processes that require patience, legal expertise, and local market knowledge. But they're also where Marathon has generated outsized returns — mid-teens to low-twenties net IRRs, according to investor materials — in a market where traditional credit funds are happy with high single digits.

Marathon's business model has always been opportunistic. The firm raised capital in the late 1990s to invest in emerging markets debt, pivoted to distressed corporates after the dot-com bust, leaned into mortgage-backed securities during the financial crisis, and then expanded into private equity and real assets in the 2010s. It's a generalist approach — go where the dislocations are, bring patient capital, and don't overpay.

European credit fits that model perfectly right now. Spreads have widened, default rates are rising, and there's less competition than there was in U.S. distressed markets, where a dozen mega-funds are chasing the same deals. Europe's still fragmented — local laws, local relationships, local expertise matter. That creates entry barriers, which is exactly what Marathon wants.

Howell's promotion also aligns with a broader shift at the firm. Co-founders Richards and Hanover are still deeply involved — Richards remains co-CIO — but Marathon has been systematically promoting senior investment professionals to partner, building a next-generation leadership team that can carry the platform forward. Howell joins a group of roughly a dozen partners who oversee strategies across credit, private equity, and real assets.

That's a sign of institutional maturity. Marathon isn't a founder-dependent shop anymore. It's building a platform where senior PMs like Howell can run substantial books without needing Richards or Hanover to sign off on every decision.

Limited partners in Marathon's European credit funds will be watching how Howell manages the portfolio through what's shaping up to be a prolonged period of credit stress. The question isn't whether Marathon can make money in distressed markets — it's proven that over 25 years. The question is whether Howell can scale the strategy without diluting returns, maintain discipline in a market where capital is starting to flood in, and avoid the trap of overpaying for assets just because they fit the mandate.

Marathon's track record suggests it knows how to stay disciplined. The firm passed on deals during the 2020-2021 refinancing boom because pricing didn't make sense. It's been willing to return capital to LPs when it can't find attractive opportunities. And it's built a reputation for being a tough but fair negotiator in restructurings — companies and creditors know Marathon will show up, do the work, and push for outcomes that maximize value.

Howell's career trajectory is textbook for a European credit investor who came of age during the sovereign debt crisis. He started at Credit Suisse in London's investment banking division, working on leveraged finance and restructuring mandates during the 2008-2010 period when European banks were collapsing and sovereigns were on the brink.

From there, he moved to Intermediate Capital Group, one of Europe's largest and most established alternative credit managers. ICG manages over €80 billion across mezzanine finance, direct lending, distressed debt, and private equity, with a focus on European mid-market companies. Howell spent several years at ICG working on leveraged finance transactions, mezzanine investments, and distressed debt situations — exactly the kind of experience that prepared him for Marathon's opportunistic approach.

When he joined Marathon in 2013, the European credit markets were still recovering from the sovereign debt crisis, and banks were beginning to sell off non-performing loan portfolios in earnest. Howell arrived at the right time, with the right skill set, and in a market where Marathon was actively deploying capital.

Over the next 12 years, Howell worked his way up from senior portfolio manager to co-manager of flagship funds alongside Richards, and now to partner and regional head. It's a long runway — longer than most credit investors get at mega-funds where partner promotions are rare and regional head roles are often reserved for founders or senior MDs who've been with the firm since inception.

That Marathon gave Howell this role suggests two things: he's delivered strong returns, and the firm trusts him to make independent decisions in a market where mistakes are expensive.

Howell's promotion sets up a few clear next steps. First, Marathon is likely to raise a dedicated European credit vehicle in the next 12-18 months. The firm's been managing European investments through its global opportunistic funds, but a standalone European vehicle would give LPs more targeted exposure and allow Marathon to deploy capital faster in regional opportunities.

Second, expect Marathon to expand its London team. The firm has been hiring selectively in Europe over the past few years — investment professionals, legal counsel, portfolio operations — and Howell's elevation gives him the mandate to build out the team further. That probably means senior hires from competitors like Oaktree, Apollo, and Centerbridge, all of which have scaled European distressed platforms.

Third, Marathon will need to decide how much capital it wants to deploy in European credit over the next cycle. The firm's historical approach has been to stay flexible — allocate capital where opportunities are best, don't lock into rigid mandates. But as the European distressed cycle deepens, there's a case for committing more permanent capital to the region.

LPs will push for that. They want exposure to European distressed, but they don't want to chase one-off co-investments or wait for global opportunistic funds to allocate to the region. A dedicated European fund with Howell at the helm gives them a clean way to get that exposure.

Finally, watch how Marathon navigates the competitive landscape. Oaktree, Apollo, and Cerberus have all been building European distressed platforms for years. Centerbridge and King Street are active. And a new wave of European-native credit funds — like Cheyne Capital and Intermediate Capital Group — are raising capital aggressively. Marathon's edge has always been its flexibility and its willingness to go into messy, complex situations that others avoid. Howell's job is to keep that edge sharp while scaling the platform.

Here's what the press release doesn't say: Marathon's bet on European credit is also a bet on a prolonged period of financial stress — not a crash, but a grind. The firm's raising capital and promoting leaders in a market where default rates are rising, but not spiking. Where banks are selling portfolios, but not in a panic. Where opportunities are emerging, but not flooding the zone.

That's a harder environment to navigate than a crisis. In a crisis, everything's on sale and the best investors can pick their spots. In a grind, you have to be patient, disciplined, and willing to pass on deals that almost work but don't quite.

Howell's track record suggests he knows how to do that. But the real test isn't whether he can deploy capital — it's whether he can deploy it profitably over the next three to five years, in a market where competition is increasing and the easy wins are already gone.

Marathon's betting he can. LPs are betting alongside him. And the European credit markets are about to find out if they're right.