The rate environment is the backdrop for everything else. Private credit's floating-rate structure is doing exactly what it was built to do: coupons have reset higher, and headline yields are compelling. But the same reset lands on the borrower. Debt service costs have climbed against cash flows that have not, which is where PIK elections, amend-and-extend activity and coverage ratios enter the conversation. Meanwhile capital continues to accumulate, compressing spreads even as absolute yields rise, and liquid credit now offers a real alternative. The question for allocators is uncomfortable and specific: how much of today's attractive yield is compensation, and how much is a signal about the underlying risk of the borrower?
The asset class has also absorbed a genuine test — borrower stress that reported default rates don't fully capture, valuation practices under scrutiny, redemption pressure in the wealth channel, and capital moving into AI and digital infrastructure faster than most allocators can keep track of. Institutional investors have largely kept committing. What has changed is what they require before they do.
This event brings allocators and managers together on the questions that now decide outcomes. Where is the spread premium still real, and where has it been competed away? How much concentration in AI-related lending is prudent, and how would you know your exposure? Which managers have actually restructured a loan, and which have only underwritten one?
A day and a half of candid, peer-led exchange on where the opportunity is and what it costs to get it wrong.