Clearly some people think this thing is worth a punt at current levels, put I am skeptical for the reason @pikel1980 has given but also the Oaktree involvement generally:
- They are known as a distressed debt investing specialist, not an equity investor
- Only about 5% of their holdings are in equity investments and they tend to exit these as quick as possible when they get them
- Oaktree's 2018 adjusted earnings were about 10x BLA's market cap - their exposure to BLA is a rounding error in their total AUM of over US$100 billion
- this probably sits in one of their distressed debt funds, with one or two 20-something MBA's monitoring the investment to make sure management doesn't stuff things up and Oaktree get their required return and then get the hell out.
I'd buy shares in NYSE:OAK over BLA any day.