When the coronavirus pandemic struck the U.S. in March 2020, it shut down entire swathes of the economy, triggered massive layoffs, and spurred a selloff that ended an 11-year bull market.

But it also created investment opportunities for buyers willing to tolerate the chaos in search of discounted assets, says billionaire Todd Boehly, the co-founder and CEO of holding company Eldridge.

In the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, his firm bought debt in distressed companies like restaurant chains Chuck E. Cheese and Le Pain Quotidien, and performance group Cirque du Soleil, he said. Plus, the company took advantage of the shift toward digital commerce with new investments in fintech.

"March of 2020, when the world started really gyrating, we had opportunities," he says.

"What really happened is trading activity ceased," he adds. "The velocity of money stopped moving, right, and people started staying home."

"So everything dried up and then people started figuring out, 'Okay, well, how am I going to replace my velocity?'" he says. "So they then started selling assets, right? And if you're well positioned to be taking advantage of those types of situations."

Eldridge, a privately owned company with headquarters in Greenwich, Connecticut, was in such a position. It already held stakes in dozens of companies, including the Los Angeles Dodgers, production company A24, and news sites like The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

Last year, the firm found a host of struggling companies and acquired their senior secure debt — debt claims that would take priority in the case of a potential bankruptcy. The move mitigated risk and promised returns, Boehly said.

"We bought senior secured debt in Chuck E. Cheese, Cirque du Soleil, we bought [Le Pain Quotidien], and we went deeper on fintech and digital," Boehly says.

"I think if you look at what we put to work over the course of the last, you know, 15 months, we probably bought over 3 billion [dollars] of credit, and we've probably sold over half of that already," he says. "But we also then found a bunch of investments where we can convert the debt to equity."

One of the firm's investments turned sour during the pandemic. NPC International, the biggest U.S. franchisee of Pizza Hut and Wendy’s restaurants, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in July and received approval from a bankruptcy judge for its sale at the outset of this year. In 2019, Eldridge wrote off its equity stake in NPC, Bloomberg Law reported.

In addition to buying debt, Eldridge turned its focus to fintech, a hot sector amid the shift to online commerce accelerated by the pandemic. The firm made investments in Stash, a digital trading platform; and Payactiv, which helps workers gain immediate access to their pay.

"We also found things like Stash and Payactiv — fintech businesses that we think are really well positioned around our themes," Boehly says.

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