Fixed Income Special Interest Group

This topic feels a bit pedestrian after reading @Todor Kostov's brilliant threads on AI (and the comments). Nonetheless... 

I'm looking at litigation finance for the first time, curious if anyone here might be willing to share some expertise / experience. In particular, what how might you evaluate performance over time and assess that performance vs. competitors (benchmarks...)? What key metrics might be common to the assessment? Would really value comments, links, or happy to connect for a quick chat. 

In this case, I have reviewed performance track record over time and generally found:

• 92% success rate, i.e. the team is highly effective at funding cases that ultimately succeed either through settlement or decision
• weightings: they seem to be taking larger bets on cases that have delivered stronger returns
• reviewed returns on a case-by-case basis, overall basis, and vs. initial internal budgets / commitments, payoff & timeline estimates, 
• overall, returns are uncorrelated to just about anything, attractive, appear to be driven by differentiated insights  

The firm is a small boutique focusing on US, UK, Europe litigation, no arbitration. Team led by seasoned barristers w/ 30+ years litigation experience, fund c. 2% of cases reviewed.  Some key person risk. 

Separately and tying this into the AI discussions on the board - I have been in contact with a professor at Uni of Toronto that is advising litigation finance investors in North America and developing AI tools to assess cases. Will share more as I learn more. 

#privatecredit 

Hi Scott,

Thanks for the mention.

I have a limited experience and knowledge in this particular area but I suggest you look in detail into one of the best know publicly listed companies in this space - Burford Capital (LSE:BUR).

There is plenty of information available on their corporate website and also on their 'Investor Relations' section.

Recently, they had their 2025 Investor Day (3 April) which might be quite useful additional source of information.

Also, they were in the news last week when a U.S. judge ordered Argentina to transfer its 51% stake in the state-run oil and gas company YPF (NYSE:YPF) as partial payment of a $16.1B court judgement against the country. They are the representatives for the plaintiffs.

Hope this helps.

Best,

Todor