What we’re watching

The G in ESG has often felt like the poor cousin of the three pillars of sustainable investing, despite evidence that governance is at least as important a driver of performance. From a credit perspective, governance drives event risk, which in turn drives default risk.

Many of you will have seen news over the past few weeks regarding the US Private Credit sector’s exposure to software and flow on concerns regarding the impact of AI on the software businesses. Investor concerns have centred around those managers who are most exposed with most press articles focussed on Blue Owl Capital as […]

As is fast becoming our tradition, for our November report we reflect on the year that was 2025 sharing our favourite books, podcasts and other things that have influenced our thinking during 2025.

This month ASIC released a surveillance report as part of their investigation into private credit. This report called out poor practices in the industry, providing a useful guide that investors can use to assess the quality of private credit managers. In this month’s What We’re Watching we benchmark our own processes against ASIC’s guidance. Apologies […]

In this month’s “What We’re Watching”, we provide our regular quarterly review of markets covering ASIC’s increased surveillance of activities in private lending markets and some high profile defaults on global credit markets.

In this month’s piece we share our perspective on recent regulatory events in the private credit markets, which we believe should provide a solid step forward in improving governance issues in this market.

This month we take a deep dive into the investment strategies employed by 401(k) plans following the move by the Trump Administration to ease the access for defined contribution schemes to invest in private markets, including private credit.

In this quarterly review, we explore why credit spreads remain resilient despite rising downgrade activity, record-high insolvencies, and signs of fundamental deterioration in riskier segments. Private credit continues to attract capital, but questions around valuations and governance persist as public markets offer increasingly competitive alternatives.

This month we discuss the role of independent agents in ensuring that governance standards in private markets are upheld. Citing the historical examples of Arthur Andersen, the credit rating agencies during the GFC and Link Fund Solutions we argue that these independent bodies are often beholden to the entities that they oversee with good governance starting at the entity itself.

As global tariff tensions simmer beneath the surface, private credit may offer relative shelter, particularly in Australia where exposure to trade related risks is lower. However, secondary impacts such as inflation and interest rate volatility remain important risks to monitor.

The devastating California wildfires of January 2025 caused unprecedented economic and housing market impacts, with insured losses reaching up to US$75 billion and broader damages estimated at US$275 billion. As extreme weather events drive up insurance costs and reduce coverage availability, property values face mounting pressure, making risk assessment a crucial consideration for investors and lenders alike.