ESG moves to centre stage But while progress is being made on the investment side, there are question marks over reporting. New research from trade body the Alternative Credit Council in partnership with law firm Allen & Overy reveals that private credit managers are accelerating the integration of environmental, social and governance issues into their…

New ways of accessing private debt for hungry LPs Permanent capital is the holy grail for fund managers looking to expand their fundraising potential even further. In the previous edition of PDI Picks, we provided a glimpse of our Global Investor 30 ranking of the largest LPs in private debt and included a table of…

Five observations from the Global Investor 30 There are no signs yet of the pandemic having had any negative effect on investor enthusiasm for private debt. We look at five takeaways from our latest ranking of private debt’s top LPs. 1. Appetite through the roof Our latest ranking of private debt’s 30 largest investors shows…

Fundraising puts the pandemic in the rear mirror The year as a whole looks set to move comfortably past the total raised in 2020. Private debt fundraising had a tough time of it last year, fighting its way through the challenges of covid-19 and the enforced remote due diligence that it brought in its wake,…

Is distressed debt an old-fashioned notion? Traditional cycles may be a thing of the past – what matters is having the skills to take advantage of challenging situations. To say there’s no such thing as distressed debt any more perhaps suggests the kind of over-optimism associated with the claim that first emerged in the dotcom…

The challenge of meeting ESG ambitions Sustainability is increasingly being factored into investment decisions, but there is little uniformity in approach. Everyone can agree that taking environmental, social and governance issues into account is now a greater priority for private debt fund managers than it has ever been in the past. But questions remain over…

Canada calling The Canadian market is relatively small but trends point to significant future growth. For a long time, a handful of domestic banks have dominated the private debt market in Canada. But that is slowly starting to change. Fund managers, both local and foreign, want a bigger piece of the pie and are beefing…

Europe is also heating up It’s not just the US seeing transaction activity hit the heights. The leveraged buyout market is helping to create a boom in Europe, too. In last week’s edition of Lead Left, we reflected in this column on the “white hot” US deals market. In Europe, it’s a similar story, with…

Reinforcements needed for deals frontline Private debt transactions are plentiful, but are European fund managers biting off more than they can chew? In last week’s Lead Left, we reflected on our US Report, which accompanied the September 2021 issue of Private Debt Investor, in which Paul Hastings partner William Brady told us that the market…

The US market is ‘white hot’ The world’s most mature private debt market is a hive of activity as it shakes off the effects of the health crisis. More than 12 months on from the pandemic-induced slump in sentiment, the US private debt market is in rude health – “white hot and hotter than it…