What's Actually Going On With Private Credit
4/27/202651 min
The private credit market has grown enormously fast in recent years — so much so that by some estimates it's now bigger than the market for junk-rated corporate bonds. So what's driven all that growth? What impact has private credit had on other types of corporate debt? And why are there so many concerns around the space right now? In this episode, we speak with John Sheehan and Craig Manchuck, two veteran portfolio managers for the strategic income fund at Osterweis Capital Management. We talk about the history of private credit before and after 2008, private credit's links with private equity and insurance, the prospect of higher defaults, and what to watch for right now.
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First 90 secondsJoe Weisenthal· Host0:00
[gentle music] Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, Radio, News.
Tracy Alloway· Host0:07
[upbeat music] Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.
Joe Weisenthal· Host0:22
And I'm Joe Weisenthal.
Tracy Alloway· Host0:23
Joe, I think it's fair to say that if we didn't have the situation with Iran- Yeah ... we would be talking a lot more about private credit.
Joe Weisenthal· Host0:31
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Jamie Dimon, he talked about the cockroaches. We keep getting these headlines over the last several weeks, maybe months, various mini, you know, not blowups per se, but mini something between a hiccup and a blowup. In some cases, you hear about redemptions being slowed down, et cetera. Not great headlines, and not great charts often too when you look at the various publicly traded instruments that one would associate with private credit.
Tracy Alloway· Host0:58
Right. So I love that you said something between a hiccup and a blowup, 'cause this is the difficulty I have- [laughs] ... in talking about the private credit space- Yeah ... at the moment, which is you either find people who are often very close to the private credit industry or in it, who will argue that this is just, you know, a tiny bump- Yeah ... in the road. This is maybe a few cockroaches.
Joe Weisenthal· Host1:19
Yeah.
Tracy Alloway· Host1:19
Like, nothing to worry about, although a single cockroach would worry me in my own household. But anyway, or you get doomsayers who are like, "This is financial crisis 2.0" Yeah Right?