The PEI Private Credit Podcast

This episode is sponsored by Manulife | Comvest Credit Partners

Standing out from the crowd in direct lending is no easy feat. In an increasingly competitive market, private credit firms are looking for new ways to differentiate their offerings and meet LP demands. But what does this look like in practice?

In this episode, we speak with Greg Reynolds, partner, chief investment officer, and co-head of direct lending at Manulife | Comvest Credit Partners, to discuss how effective sourcing strategies, disciplined underwriting standards, and robust portfolio management can help managers find quality deals and minimise risk.

This episode is sponsored by Castlelake

Asset-based finance (ABF) is widely considered to be the next big investment opportunity in private credit. Though not a new concept, it has recently attracted growing attention from institutional investors looking to diversify their credit portfolios beyond traditional corporate direct lending.

However, the breadth and complexity of the asset class require a closer look: understanding the nuances around origination, structuring, risk management and data feedback loops can help investors sift through the capital and new entrants moving into the space.

In this episode, Isaiah Toback, deputy co-chief investment of...

As fund managers and investors attempt to achieve diversification as a means to hedge themselves against emerging stresses in direct lending portfolios, is the nature of risk in strategies such as asset-based finance fully appreciated? This was one of the talking points at the New York Forum 2026, which forms part of a discussion in this episode between PEI Private Credit's Andy Thomson, Robin Blumenthal and Sergio Padilla.

Other key topics considered here: How is AI changing fund manager processes and allocation considerations? Which areas of the market are becoming the most competitive? And what are the key...

This episode is sponsored by Arrow Global

As the private credit industry continues to grow at a rapid pace, so too does the opportunity set for the asset class when it comes to finding new ways of attracting LP capital. One region that is predicted to benefit from an influx of investor interest is Europe. PEI Private Credit’s LP Perspectives 2026 Study found that 42 percent of LPs surveyed intended to invest more in Western Europe over the course of this year.

But investing there is no simple task. The continent’s fragmented regulatory and legal framewo...

This episode is sponsored by Barings

Diversifying strategies is hugely popular with investors right now – and for good reason. Macroeconomic upheaval is prompting LPs to take a closer look at their credit portfolios and evaluate where their capital can deliver the strongest relative value.

Enter portfolio finance. The strategy is by no means new,  but it is gaining traction among institutional investors for its intrinsic diversification and capital preservation properties.

In this episode of The Private Debt Investor Podcast, we speak with Dadong Yan, Barings’ global head of portfolio finance, based in Boston, and Ma...

Private Debt Investor’s Europe Summit brings together leading industry figures for two days of networking and panel discussions, where artificial intelligence, the democratisation of private markets and the rise of asset-based lending were among the key targets for analysis.

In this episode, PEI Group’s special projects editor Hannah Roberts speaks with Private Debt Investor editor Andy Thomson and news editor John Bakie to provide further insight into these agenda-setting topics and examine where the market may be headed next.

Having shot to prominence in the early part of this decade, have sustainability-linked loans (or SLLs) become an enduring part of the private credit landscape? Or have they quietly gone out of fashion?

In this special edition of the podcast, co-hosted with PEI Group affiliate publication New Private Markets, we seek to chart the rise of sustainability-linked loans and assess how they are being used today.

To recap: these loans feature a margin ratchet whereby the borrower’s performance against certain sustainability targets can result in a lower interest rate in the case of outperformance, or...

In this episode, we examine some headline-grabbing company failures such as First Brands, Tricolor and Carriox – and ponder what lessons and insights there might be for the private debt asset class.

While private debt exposure may have been relatively limited in these instances, can the asset class be confident that it has its own house in order? Jiri Krol of the Alternative Investment Management Association and Alternative Credit Council acknowledges there is stress in the system – but believes that stress may have already peaked and that, in general, private debt has once again demonstrated its resilience in tough...

This episode is sponsored by Rithm Capital

Asset-based finance is rapidly evolving within the world of private credit, offering investors a differentiated source of risk-adjusted returns. With the market valued at over $20 trillion, it underscores the vast scale and growing importance of this segment as investors seek alternative opportunities amid shifting economic conditions.

In this episode, we speak to Michael Nierenberg, CEO of Rithm Capital, to discuss why asset-based finance is becoming more popular with investors. We analyse the opportunities ABF brings, while also exploring how managers are differentiating themselves in a competitive market.

This episode is sponsored by Nuveen

The private debt industry continues to go from strength to strength, with several key segments of the market gaining further traction with institutional investors as they seek out strong returns in an uncertain macroeconomic environment.

Both geography and strategy will be crucial to attract LPs in the coming months and years - Europe and the US each have significant market factors at play that will determine the trajectory and rate of private credit growth across both markets, while the infrastructure-focused investment-grade space is seeing strong dealflow despite volatility.

This episode is sponsored by Arrow Global

To be a successful player in the distressed lending market, one needs to understand the importance of timing. The current macroeconomic environment offers plenty of opportunities for distressed lenders looking to assist businesses struggling with market dislocation, bank retrenchment and policy uncertainty. However, lenders that look to take a more opportunistic approach to the strategy may not be able to deliver the kinds of returns sought by increasingly sophisticated investors.

In this episode, we speak with Zach Lewy, founder, CEO, and chief investment officer of Arrow Global, to d...

Philip Sherrill, Blackstone's global head of insurance at the company's credit and insurance unit, joined to talk about why it chooses a "capital-light" approach to insurance investing. In addition, he expands on the growing homogenisation of how insurance investors access private credit, and how the policies they're underwriting influence that – across the globe.

Oaktree Capital Management’s announcement in early February that its Opportunities Fund XII had raised $16 billion – inclusive of co-investments and affiliated investment vehicles – represented the largest fundraise for an opportunistic/distressed debt fund to date.

Brook Hinchman and Jared Parker – both managing directors and co-heads of North America for Oaktree’s Global Opportunities strategy, joined The Private Debt Investor Podcast to discuss the strategy and how a mixture of factors including tariffs, liability management exercises and the path forward for interest rates are influencing decision making as the fund’s investment phase is in full swing.

This episode first appeared on Secondaries Investor's Second Thoughts podcast, which you can subscribe to by clicking here, or searching wherever you listen to podcasts.

Private credit secondaries has the potential to surpass private equity in deal volume over the longer term as more secondaries investors pursue yield and diversification amid market volatility.

Over the past year, several billion-dollar-plus deals have emerged in the credit secondaries space, including Coller Capital's recent acquisition of a $1.6 billion portfolio from American National and TPG Angelo Gordon's $1.5 billion continuation fund. Firms like Coller, Pantheon, Apollo Global Management and Ares Manageme...

Over the last few years, talk of private credit’s “golden age” has grown louder, with predictions from various sources that the asset class could eventually grow to around $20-25 trillion in size from its current level of $2-3 trillion. Yet, fundraising has slowed since its peak in 2021. So was all the talk premature?

Jess Larsen, founder and chief executive officer of private credit-focused placement agent Briarcliffe Credit Partners, believes that it was – but he also believes this is the year when a corner will be turned and private credit will start the journey that could see it one d...

This episode is sponsored by Rithm Capital

The asset-based finance market is heating up, with a raft of private credit investors increasingly taking note of the strategy – and for good reason. Capable of delivering strong returns even in challenging macroeconomic environments due to its cashflow-oriented nature, ABF represents a rather unique offering for lenders and LPs alike.

But contrary to what many might think, ABF is not a particularly new strategy. Michael Nierenberg is Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Rithm Capital, a global asset manager focused on real estate, credit and financial services wh...

Growing scale is one of the big themes in private debt as a small group of mega-sized GPs expand their platforms rapidly – both building on existing strategies like direct lending and colonising new areas such as asset-based lending and specialty finance.

Among the largest of these managers is Goldman Sachs Asset Management, one of the early pioneers of the asset class. In this edition of The Private Debt Investor Podcast, we hear from James Reynolds, global co-head of GSAM’s private credit business, about how the addressable market is growing larger still – with $10 billion club deals now within...

Private debt's rapid growth is continuing to attract attention from junior professionals that are looking to make a career for themselves in this dynamic market. But how can they stand out from the crowd and prove their value in what is an increasingly competitive labour market?

In November, Private Debt Investor unveiled its annual list of Rising Stars of Private Debt, which highlights the young professionals that are blazing a trail in the asset class.

For this episode, we asked three of this year's cohort to reflect on their careers and share how they capitalised...

Last year, the European Commission launched a consultation seeking feedback on the functioning of the EU Securitisation Framework. Among those organisations submitting a response to this was the Alternative Credit Council, the body representing private credit asset managers led by global head Jiri Krol.

The Private Debt Investor Podcast caught up with Krol to find out what was at the heart of the ACC’s response. The organisation believes there was an “overreaction” after the global financial crisis, placing severe regulatory burdens on the securitisation market, including the likes of private credit firms as well as banks and in...

This episode is sponsored by Golub Capital

Private credit has enjoyed massive growth for more than a decade, but there are real questions about what happens when conditions are less favourable. How can lenders that launched during the good times continue to succeed when the market changes?

David Golub of Golub Capital knows from experience. Golub Capital was founded 30 years ago and has performed well in all kinds of market conditions. One of Golub Capital’s strengths involves a ’good boring’ approach, which aims to minimise the excitement of market swings and focus on delivering consis...

This episode is sponsored by Sculptor Capital Management

The last 24 months have been a period of uncertainty and volatility in credit markets, with rising inflation and higher interest rates putting borrower capital structures under pressure and making it difficult for lenders to price risk.

These headwinds have proven challenging for mainstream lenders. But for opportunistic credit investors, it has provided a window to unlock attractive risk-adjusted returns in situations that are obscured by complexity.

In this episode, we sit down with Jimmy Levin, the chief investment officer of Sculptor Capital, a global alternative...

This episode is sponsored by Arrow Global

Private debt has enjoyed sustained success in recent years, with private credit firms stepping in to fill the void left by the retreat of banks from their traditional lending role. The outlook for the asset class in Europe remains strong, as firms continue to find compelling opportunities, even in sectors that face market headwinds.

A persistent supply-demand imbalance in the housing market across most European countries means that residential real estate is a particularly attractive sector for lenders. Changing work patterns are also giving a long-term boost to...

This episode is sponsored by Bain Capital

Asia’s credit markets are the largest in the world, yet they remain heavily bank dominated. While large blue-chip businesses are well serviced, there is a material undersupply of custom, fit-for-purpose capital for SMEs, mid-market businesses, and financial sponsors. This is creating a significant opportunity for direct lenders.

Asia’s credit markets are also complex and nuanced, which places a premium on managers with the right networks, insights, and experience.

In this episode of the Private Debt Investor Podcast, Bain Capital’s Andrew Schantz, discusses how to nav...

In this episode, Andy Thomson meets with Raymond Wright, a portfolio manager in private markets at the London Collective Investment Vehicles, which was established in 2015 as one of eight UK Local Government Pension Scheme asset-pooling companies.

Wright discusses the organisation’s private debt-focused funds of funds and how he has gone about building portfolios through client collaboration – which, by his own admission, is a process that has challenged some of his assumptions around portfolio construction.

He talks about why asset-based finance, secondaries and sustainability are all favoured areas currently, but also why he has concerns abou...

This episode is sponsored by 17Capital

NAV finance used to be a niche, little known corner of debt capital markets, but over the past 10 years it has evolved into a firmly established part of the private markets ecosystem.

As NAV finance has moved into the mainstream, private capital managers have taken up NAV facilities in ever greater numbers to address a wide range of financing requirements.

So, how are managers using NAV finance across their platforms, and how has the market navigated a cycle of rising inflation and interest rates? What do LPs...

This episode is sponsored by the Credit Investments Group (CIG)

Private credit has expanded exponentially in recent years, with most citing the contraction in syndicated markets as the cause of that growth. But now those markets are opening back up, and questions linger about how that will affect private credit.

So what do continued inflation and elevated interest rates mean for today's managers? What does private credit look like now, and how will it adapt to a new macroeconomic landscape? Will private credit shrink in the wake of access to public credit, or will the...

This episode is sponsored by Blackstone

Private credit has seen significant growth over the past year, with some of the largest asset managers increasing their allocations to the sector. It comes as volatile market conditions and geopolitical tensions have plagued most industries, revealing private debt as a more secure source of capital. So, how are firms looking to take advantage of this uptick in activity? And what areas will they be focusing on going forward?

In this episode, we're joined by Blackstone’s Michael Zawadzki and Brad Marshall to explore some of the trends shaping pr...

In this episode, Andy Thomson sits down with Darius Craton, a director at Raymond James/Cebile Capital, a private fund placement and secondary advisory specialist. Craton reflects on PDI's fundraising data for 2023, providing insight into why it was a difficult year for those raising fresh capital but also why 2024 is shaping up to be more fruitful.

See Private Debt Investor's full 2023 fundraising report here.

In this episode, we catch up with Jiří Król, global head of the Alternative Credit Council within the Alternative Investment Management Association. The ACC is a body that represents the private credit industry to policymakers, legislators and regulatory authorities globally.

In the conversation, Król discusses implications arising from the second, revised version of the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), which fund managers in Europe will need to incorporate into their activities over the next few years.

One of the issues noted by Król is the definition of loan origination funds, which he be...

In this episode, we catch up with Reji Vettasseri, lead portfolio manager for private markets investments at Decalia, a Geneva-headquartered wealth management specialist.

Vettasseri reflects on some of the key takeaways from PDI’s LP Perspectives 2024 study in conversation with PDI senior editor Andy Thomson and explains why he thinks appetite to invest in private debt funds is growing after a challenging fundraising year in 2023. He also shares his views on why confidence in private debt performance is so strong, and questions whether investors are necessarily justified in continuing to allocate large amounts of capital to the sa...

In the final episode of our Decade of Private Debt podcast miniseries, the partner in client and product solutions at Apollo discusses the progression of her firm’s private debt business, as well as her personal growth within the industry.

Be sure to also check out our Decade of Private Debt special report at Private Debt Investor.

In the fifth episode of our Decade of Private Debt miniseries, the European Leveraged Finance Association CEO reflects on the highs and lows of borrower/lender deal negotiations in the industry.

Be sure to also check out our Decade of Private Debt special report at Private Debt Investor.

In the fourth episode of our Decade of Private Debt podcast miniseries, Pemberton co-founder and managing partner Symon Drake-Brockman discusses how the industry has evolved and recounts the process of shaping Pemberton into the powerhouse it is today.

Be sure to also check out our Decade of Private Debt special report at Private Debt Investor.

In the third episode of our Decade of Private Debt podcast miniseries, Kartesia's head of France Julien Rigon reflects on the past 10 years from an ESG perspective and looks at how the industry might evolve considering today’s sustainability agenda.

Be sure to also check out our Decade of Private Debt special report at Private Debt Investor.

In the second episode of our Decade of Private Debt podcast miniseries, LCM CEO Paul Burdell discusses the evolution of private debt and banking oversight over the past 10 years, the impact of regulations, as well as LCM’s unique position in the industry.

Be sure to also check out our Decade of Private Debt special report at Private Debt Investor.

In the first episode of our Decade of Private Debt podcast miniseries, Arougheti looks back at a decade of strategic growth in private credit, emphasising the importance of enduring relationships and the misunderstood, yet resilient nature of the market.

Be sure to also check out our Decade of Private Debt special report at Private Debt Investor.

Introducing the Private Debt Investor Podcast, where we'll be exploring the emerging trends and most important themes with the biggest names in the private credit asset class. To learn more and see all your subscription options, go to https://privatedebtinvestor.com/podcast