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Lending outside the banks: who does it, on what terms, and where it can break. 16 write-ups from 6 shows so far, the newest from November 2026.
Private credit is expanding rapidly to replace retreating commercial banks across real estate and corporate lending. Shows disagree on portfolio health, with some reporting strong earnings while others point to widespread distress resolved quietly out of court.
Commercial banks pulled back from corporate and real estate loans following regulatory changes. Private lenders are stepping in to fund asset-backed facilities and absorb a $3 trillion commercial property maturity wall.
Ares Management reports strong borrower earnings and historically low default rates. Other investors warn that lenders hide widespread distress by pushing debt maturities to 2028 and using payment-in-kind structures to avoid formal bankruptcies.
Private equity sponsors bring large buyouts straight to the biggest direct lenders. Scaled platforms dictate pricing and terms on premium deals, forcing smaller entrants to underwrite the transactions those top platforms reject.
Software credits account for nearly half of the debt trading below 90 cents. Despite this distress, direct lenders rely on equity cushions averaging 13 to 14 turns of EBITDA to push valuation risk onto private equity sponsors.
Over $3 trillion in commercial property loans mature over the next five years, driven heavily by peak-valuation debt written during 2021.
From Private Debt Fills the $3 Trillion Bank Lending Void, Capital Allocators · Oct 11
Between 85% and 90% of troubled corporate credits are resolving out of court through liability management exercises and payment-in-kind arrangements rather than Chapter 11.
From Private Credit Debt Wall Is Moving to 2028, Private Equity Funcast · Nov 15
Opening 401(k) and ERISA accounts to private markets introduces an individual investor capital pool larger than the entire institutional market.
From Why Private Equity Cannot Scale Like Private Credit, How I Invest · Sep 13
In European private credit, the firm prices risk at 3.5% over Euribor to deliver 7.5% to 8% yields, avoiding the double-digit return profiles that attract high default rates.
From Christopher Donahue on Private Credit: Capping Yields at 8 Percent, How I Invest · Nov 1
William Tuck Hardie of Houlihan Lokey explains that formal defaults stay rare because private credit lenders and private equity sponsors are both fundraising and refuse to mark down impaired capital.
Alter Domus executive Patrick Krajci warns that private credit secondaries cannot run on private equity fund administration infrastructure.
Borrowers and private credit lenders are pushing debt maturities out to 2028 and 2030 to bypass volatility around the US presidential election.
Vik Uppal built a 48-unit apartment complex in Minnesota alongside his father at age 18 before moving into commercial redevelopment.
The headline default rate in the broadly syndicated loan market sits at just 0.87%, masking widespread balance sheet distress.
Christopher Donahue projects that private markets could eventually eclipse the scale of Federated Hermes' current business, which manages over $700 billion in money market assets.
Commercial real estate debt represents a $6 trillion market, ranking as the fourth largest fixed income asset class in the United States.
Software buyout debt holds an equity cushion averaging 13 to 14 turns of EBITDA, protecting direct lenders against severe enterprise value drops.
Institutional pension funds currently allocate 8% to 15% of their capital to private equity, while retail investors sit between 0% and 1%.
Ares Management Co-President Kipp deVeer reports that direct loan portfolio performance contradicts public skepticism, with default rates and non-accruals tracking well below historical averages.
Scale functions differently in private debt than in public equities; larger platforms gain direct pricing power, execution certainty, and proprietary market intelligence.
Private equity sponsors funding billion-dollar buyouts do not run broad syndication processes; they call two or three scaled direct lenders directly.
The week's private equity podcasts, boiled down to one short Sunday read, for deal professionals, operating partners, and LPs.
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