'The Big Short 2.0': How hedge funds profited off the pain of malls

As the pandemic accelerated the demise of some brick-and-mortar retailers, a group of investors profited handsomely from their travails

Catie McKee was nervous. It was last October, and the 31-year-old hedge fund analyst, who had been scrutinizing the mortgages on the nation’s malls, was convinced that some of those malls would default on their loans. She and her colleagues had even bet a substantial amount of money on that likelihood.

Ms. McKee was about to make her case to Carl Icahn, one of the country’s best-known investors, who had made a similar wager and invited her team to discuss the trade. Nothing would bolster her confidence — and the prospects for her trade — more than if the billionaire and