The Friday Review

What we are reading:

First Brands went to Chapter 7 liquidation this week, and the collateral verification business that Tricolor's collapse created is booming. Also: a leadership purge at Fannie Mae, the case for software incumbents in the AI shift, and hobbies back on the resume. Our chart this week sizes bank lending to non-bank lenders.

🔎 Guidehouse's collateral verification inquiries are up 80% and Vervent's up 50% since Tricolor's double-pledged collateral surfaced, and Pagaya now requires a third-party checker. https://finance.yahoo.com/small-business/articles/tricolor-fallout-fuels-boom-business-090000623.html

🔧 A judge converted First Brands to Chapter 7 on August 24, rejecting a plan that deferred $222M of claims run up during a case that has already paid $245M in advisory fees. https://thebrakereport.com/first-brands-chapter-7-liquidation-conversion/

🏠 Fannie Mae cut at least 10 senior executives in a single three-hour window, the COO and chief economist among them. https://www.wsj.com/finance/regulation/fannie-mae-hit-by-turmoil-in-senior-ranks-as-at-least-10-executives-depart-9f0f40e0

🤖 Agentforce (Salesforce) grew from $100M to $1.5B of ARR in 18 months while under 1% of Booking's room nights come from LLM traffic, which is Sonnenfeld's case that incumbents own the layer AI agents run on. https://fortune.com/2026/08/26/saaspocalypse-salesforce-booking-ibm-sonnenfeld/

🐕 More than half the associates one legal recruiter placed last year had a hobbies section, from dachshund training to birdhouses, because AI made every other line look the same. https://www.wsj.com/lifestyle/careers/go-ahead-put-your-most-eccentric-hobbies-on-your-resume-31edf892

Our chart below: Bank loans to nondepository financial institutions hit $1.49 trillion in July, 6.8x the January 2015 level and 7.7x outside the largest 25 banks.