direct lending
26 statements across 11 episodes · 7 bullish · 3 bearish · 11 people on the record · first statement Dec 11, 2017 by Chris Acito · across every show →
Everything said about direct lending, oldest first
Dec 11, 2017
Acito: Direct lending due diligence resembles evaluating a bank, not hedge funds
“Credit investing is very different in that it. Looks more like a bank. It's particularly when you get into the new origination elements of investing or maybe prop trading to some extent, but just take on the direct lending side. When you walk in to evaluate a …”
Jul 26, 2021 bullish
Direct Lenders Achieve Lower Losses Than Syndicated Loans Through Better Diligence
“The other thing we need to do is because we can do a lot more diligence than a syndicated participant is to make sure we better protect the downside. Whatever the loan losses are in the syndicated market, we need to do a much, much better job. Because we have …”
Jul 26, 2021 neutral
Jul 26, 2021
Jul 24, 2023 neutral
Domestic Nationalism Will Keep European Banks Active in Corporate Lending
“The banks won't quite exit the market completely. Because, you know, there's still some French banks, and they're nationalistic about lending in France, and there are German banks that want to lend in Germany, and Swedish banks that want to lend in Sweden, so …”
Oct 26, 2023 bullish
Mar 14, 2024 neutral
May 15, 2025 neutral
Clarke notes direct lending was viewed as episodic, $50M mandates in 2017
“At the time, direct lending was considered more of a strategic allocation. It was an allocation that people did episodically. There was dislocation spreads. They tapped into a fund, and then they got out when there was a normalization. You never saw these big …”
May 15, 2025 neutral
May 26, 2025 bearish
May 26, 2025
May 26, 2025 bearish
Jun 12, 2025 neutral
Top 20% of Private Credit Firms Dominate 80% of the Market
“80% of private credit is dominated by 20% of the players. They are investing out of very large funds. That market continues to consolidate. And the focus of most folks in direct lending and private credit is on opportunities that are larger than fifty million …”
Jul 17, 2025 neutral
Jul 17, 2025 neutral
AUM growth forced former middle-market direct lenders to migrate upmarket
“If you look at the entities that were dominant in the middle market 10, 15 years ago, They don't play in the middle market anymore. As their AUM, their capital base has grown, deployment pressures become so significant that they've had to find more efficient w…”
Jul 17, 2025 neutral
Jul 17, 2025 bullish
Commercial banks will inevitably find ways to re-enter direct lending
“They should, and they will find a way to get involved in this business, but it's hard. They're not really able to take these assets on their own balance sheet. All the issues that we all lived through during the GFC, they're muted today, but they still resonat…”
Jul 17, 2025
Invesco's direct lending team refuses secondary loan pieces from competitors
“If we were to get a call from another direct lender who said, hey, we've closed the deal. We're long, fifty million dollars. We'll send you our IC memo. Would you guys want to buy it? Not for any reason other than that's just not how we conduct business. We wo…”
Jul 17, 2025 positive
Nov 17, 2025 neutral
Lyon: Direct lending growth is driven by asset managers chasing fee-related earnings
“Now what you're seeing is those businesses are attached to a lot of very large alternative asset managers, many of whom trade on FRE. A good way to create FRE is to take several billion dollars of loans and charge one percent on them. That's what you're seeing…”
Nov 17, 2025 positive
Lyon: Direct lenders now hold $2B per deal, competing with syndicated loans
“Today, direct lending competes with the syndicated loan market. Big players have hundreds of billions of dollars. They will hold two billion dollars in a name, so it's no longer a cottage industry supporting the underbanked. It is a direct competitor to the sy…”
Nov 17, 2025 bullish
Feb 2, 2026 bullish
Lewinsohn: Direct lending shifted from overhyped to underrated
“Direct lending, which is a big part of what we do now, got very hyped up. Everyone's saying, oh, you have to do it, whether it's allocators, investors, GPs. And now has gone all the way to the point that people are so afraid of it. They miss what's great about…”
Feb 2, 2026 neutral
Feb 2, 2026 neutral