Lending Lowdown podcast - 
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Season 1

Episode 41, Season 1

Islamic Finance in the Digital Assets Era

In this discussion, Rene Michau, Global Head of Digital Assets, and Dr. Alaa Alaabed, Director-Group Islamic FM Products at Standard Chartered, join CJ Doherty to explore where digital financial infrastructure is heading and how Islamic finance can be embedded into trusted digital rails to broaden participation, improve execution, and unlock new opportunities for cross-border business. "The challenge with all tokenisation at the moment is the scaling of the underlying infrastructure,” said Rene Michau. “We need Islamic banks to be able to provide custody for these assets, to be able to provide execution, to allow clients to access them, and to allow those to move to venues for distribution, and for all of that to be working together."
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Episode 40, Season 1

Portfolio Debt Securities: Understanding the Asset Class and Its Role in Investor Portfolios

In this discussion, Kyle McGrady, Senior Principal and Head of Client & Partner Solutions at Eagle Point Credit Management, joins LSEG LPC's CJ Doherty to share insights on Portfolio Debt Securities, including what they are, how they fit within portfolio construction and approaches to risk management. "To date no portfolio debt security investment has experienced a credit loss,” said McGrady. "To our knowledge, we’ve had about 1.4% of our portfolio that has covenant breaches.”
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Episode 39, Season 1

Private Credit – A Perspective on Current Market Conditions

LSEG LPC’s CJ Doherty is joined by David Fann, Partner and Head of Capital Formation at VSS Capital Partners to discuss the state of the private credit market and structured capital as a financing option today. "Artificial intelligence is for real. And like any of these exogenous disruptions that have occurred, hard to figure out, truly potentially impactful in ways that none of us had ever contemplated," Fann said. "The noise around AI is a recent phenomenon. I would say, while it's been around for over 40 years. I remember taking AI class, artificial intelligence classes back in college, way back in the 80s."
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Episode 38, Season 1

The Role of NAV Loans and How They Fit in GPs Financial Tool Kit

LSEG LPC’s CJ Doherty sits down with Aryeh Landsberg, Managing Director, Investments at 17Capital and Ryan Moreno, Partner and Co-Head of Private Credit and Fund Finance at DLA Piper, to discuss NAV loans made to private equity funds, how GPs deploy this product and how it fits in their financial tool kit. “NAV can be a useful tool to help manage remaining capital needs, maintain a balance between remaining uncalled capital from their LPs for additional uses such as accretive M&A opportunities but also for fund level expenses,” said Landsberg. “Banks, historically, had been the provider of the NAV loan product, more in a kind of fashion where they would do it as an accommodation for one of their larger sponsor clients,” Moreno said.
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Episode 37, Season 1

2025 Takeaways and Forward Look to 2026 US Direct Lending Market

Garrett Stephen, Senior Managing Director, Co-Head of Origination at Napier Park Global Capital talks to CJ Doherty, Director of Market Analysis at LSEG LPC, about private credit in 2025 and what is in store for 2026. "I'd say on the AI side, it's really a big focus at the business level for us on making sure that we're implementing AI more broadly within our work streams to stay ahead of the curve,” Stephen said. "If you have a large workforce and maybe not every individual within that workforce is productive, and you can utilize technology to make your core employees more productive, that potentially could cause some of that workforce to decline in those mature or declining businesses."
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Episode 36, Season 1

Non-Sponsored Lending Opportunities in the European Mid-Market

Chris Rust, Co-Head of European Private Credit at investment manager Ninety One joins CJ Doherty, Director of Analysis at LSEG LPC, to discuss non-sponsored lending opportunities in the European middle market. “There certainly are a lot of misconceptions about the non-sponsored lending strategy. One of them is that non-sponsored borrowers are inherently riskier than sponsored borrowers,” Rust said. “Oftentimes there's a view that they're smaller businesses and therefore they're also less credit worthy, not as good credits. And in general, there is in some parts of the market a view, simply put, that it is a riskier or high-risk strategy.”
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Episode 35, Season 1

Middle Market Direct Lending State of Play

Loan market veteran Tom Newberry, Chief Credit Officer & Executive Chairman of direct lending at Sound Point Capital Management sits down with CJ Doherty, Director of Analysis at LSEG LPC to discuss the US middle market direct lending landscape, providing insight on deal flow, pricing, fundraising and portfolio company performance. “Direct lending deal volumes were down somewhere between 10% and 40% in the first half of 2025,” Newberry said. “This obviously contrasts fairly dramatically with what everyone expected to be a banner year for acquisition activity.”
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Episode 34, Season 1

Is the ‘golden age’ of private credit coming to an end?

Michael Gross, co-founder and co-Chief Executive Officer of SLR Capital Partners, joins CJ Doherty to share his thoughts on private credit and BDCs, including whether the ‘golden age’ of private credit is coming to an end. “The benefits of private credit obviously is speed to market, flexible structuring,” Gross said. “I do think you will see an increased level of defaults over the next couple of years in traditional private credit lending portfolios, but I don't think that's going to slow the growth.”
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Episode 33, Season 1

Asset based lending: Evolving taxonomy for direct lender vs bank arranged loans

LSEG LPC’s Maria Dikeos talks with Barry Bobrow, Head of Credit Markets for Regions Business Capital and founder and chairman of Asset Based Capital, a leading conference on asset based lending, about similarities and differences of the asset based loan arranged in the bank loan market vs the direct lending market. “If done what I would call the right way,” Bobrow said, “asset based loans have a very low loss rate, a high recovery rate, relative to the broader category of leveraged lending.”
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Episode 32, Season 1

Current Dynamics in the Corporate Bond Market

Connor Fitzgerald, Portfolio Manager at Wellington Management, joins LSEG LPC’s CJ Doherty to discuss current conditions in the corporate bond market. "I think the Trump administration is in a challenging spot right now," Fitzgerald said. "While we tend to agree with some of the long term objectives that they're trying to achieve, we think the risk that the administration may be under-appreciated a little bit is that if we get too aggressive with some of our trading partners by way of tariffs that their response will be to liquidate the capital account."
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Episode 31, Season 1

The intersection of private credit and insurance company capital

LSEG LPC’s CJ Doherty sits down with David Ells, Partner and Portfolio Manager at Ares Management and Ryan Moreno, Partner and Co-head of Leveraged Finance at DLA Piper, to discuss the intersection of private credit and insurance company capital. “The first thing about being an insurance company is that everything is viewed through a lens of capital,” Ells said. “You have to allocate capital against everything that you own.”
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Episode 30, Season 1

Understanding Debt Portability in Loan Agreements

Arek Maczka from Ropes & Gray joins host Chris Piccirillo to provide insight on debt portability provisions. Arek explains the concept of portability along with its purpose and benefits, outlines customary terms and conditions, and gives us his views on today’s market landscape and whether portable capital structures are here to stay. "Portability has become increasingly normalized over the past few years," Maczka said. "I agree that it does tend to ebb and flow, especially in the syndicated markets."
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Episode 29, Season 1

Spotlight on Significant Risk Transfer (SRT) Transactions

Frank Benhamou from Cheyne Capital joins host CJ Doherty to shed light on the Significant Risk Transfer (SRT) Market. "What we're seeing is an expansion both in terms of count, in terms of jurisdiction, as well as asset classes that it's being used on," Benhamou said. "So that creates effectively a new opportunity."
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Episode 28, Season 1

Islamic Financing Overview

Mustafa Adil, Head of Islamic Finance at LSEG, joins CJ Doherty to discuss the basic tenets of Islamic Financing and looks ahead to 2025. “The market has been growing substantially in the core markets in in which it operates,” said Adil. “There are 57 countries that have introduced Islamic finance regulations and where governments are actively supporting the development of Islamic finance.”
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Episode 27, Season 1

Capital Solutions Lending Insights

Host CJ Doherty speaks with Brian Himot, Head of Structured Capital at Strategic Value Partners, about capital solutions lending in both the US and Europe. "We think of ourselves as fitting in the space that is between traditional direct lending and private equity," said Himot. "There are a lot of opportunities that present themselves at different times through the cycle and when you have an evergreen strategy like ours, you need to have flexibility."
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Episode 26, Season 1

The Role of ARR Lending in Today’s Market

Host CJ Doherty sits down with Ben Radinsky, Partner at HighVista Strategies to discuss annual recurring revenue (ARR) loans and how they allow lenders to facilitate the financing of growth-stage companies. "ARR loans, what you're doing is you're trying to isolate cash flows that you actually know with high certainty will exist overtime," Radinsky said. "You can predict what that cash flow looks like in terms of ultimate profitability and because of that, you can have very tight covenants as a lender."
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Episode 25, Season 1

Deep Dive into the CLO ETF and Broader Securitized Market

John Kerschner, Head of U.S. Securitized Products & Portfolio Manager at Janus Henderson Investors joins CJ Doherty to discuss the growing CLO ETF and broader securitized market. "Securitized products are issued at the short end of the yield curve between one and five years," said Kerschner. "Now that the yield curve is inverted, meaning the short end has higher yields than the long end, that makes the overall yields of securitized products look very attractive."
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Episode 24, Season 1

Current state of the US Direct Lending Market

Alex Gorokhovskiy, Head of Direct Lending and Venture Debt at Deutsche Bank, joins host CJ Doherty to discuss current conditions in the US direct lending market and the outlook for the remainder of 2024. "There's consumer health that's ever evolving," said Gorokhovskiy. "Sponsors are now focused on making differentiated investments as opposed to paying the highest multiple for the next best asset."
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Episode 23, Season 1

Opportunities in Digital Assets Financing

The huge growth in AI applications and data consumption is driving the need for financing of digital assets. Host CJ Doherty sits down with IFR Senior Reporter Richard Leong to discuss the demand for financing in this asset class. "Private credit and insurers are stepping in to provide longer term capital to fund this tremendous amount of money needed," said Leong. "For the capital markets...just increasing use of securitization to term out loans for these players."
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Episode 22, Season 1

European Capital Solutions Lending in 2024

Host CJ Doherty sits down with David Brooks and Alice Cavalier, Partners & Co-Heads of Capital Solutions at Arcmont Asset Management, to discuss capital solutions lending and the outlook for the rest of 2024. "Loans have been up about 250% year to date and accounting for about 60% of the market as of last week and bond issuance has increased as well significantly," said Cavalier. "People are busy, more bullish on M&A."
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Episode 21, Season 1

The CLO Market in 2024

Host CJ Doherty sits down with John Wright, Global Head of Credit at Bain Capital Credit, to discuss current conditions in the US CLO market and what’s ahead in the remainder of 2024. "Coming into this year, we're seeing much greater interest and much greater willingness on behalf of the banks to underwrite loans," said Wright. "That's driven by strength in the secondary market and the new issue market for leveraged loans."
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Episode 20, Season 1

2023 Direct Lending Review, 2024 Preview

David Puchowski, Director of Analysis at LSEG LPC joins CJ Doherty to discuss the key trends that shaped the direct lending market in 2023 and preview what is in store for 2024. "59% of total US LBO loan volume was done in the direct lending market," said Puchowski. "That was the first time that direct took the majority over the syndicated market."
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Episode 19, Season 1

Structured Credit Outlook

Noelle Sisco, Managing Director and Portfolio Strategist at Napier Park joins CJ Doherty to discuss the outlook for the structured credit market as we head into 2024. “The big question mark for the U.S. consumer will be the trajectory of unemployment,” said Sisco. “Going forward into 2024, on the corporate side, we expect to see a continuation of elevated defaults with lower than historical recovery levels as we saw in 2023.”
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Episode 18, Season 1

Opportunities in the Lower Middle Market

Host CJ Doherty and Dan Lee, partner at Comvest Credit Partners, discuss the current lending landscape in the US lower middle market. “The lower middle market generally has held up, volumes have been more steady,” Lee said. “The trends in the lower middle market…tend to follow the larger market but to be not quite as volatile.”
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Episode 17, Season 1

The State of the European Leveraged Finance Market

Host CJ Doherty sits down with Ben Thompson, Head of EMEA Leveraged Finance Capital Markets at JP Morgan for a discussion on the European leveraged loan and high yield bond markets.
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Episode 16, Season 1

Private Credit and the Retail Investor Base

Host CJ Doherty sits down with Laura Holson, Managing Director and COO of Credit at New Mountain Capital for a discussion on the evolving interest in private credit from retail investors.
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Episode 15, Season 1

CLO Outlook

US CLO market activity slowed in 2Q23, with issuance falling 37% to US$21.3bn as the challenging arbitrage impacted dealflow, ultimately constraining liquidity. In Episode 15 of our podcast, join CJ Doherty, Director of Market Analysis and Kristen Haunss, Assistant Editor US Loans at LSEG LPC, for a discussion of current trends in the US Collateralized Loan Obligations market.
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Episode 14, Season 1

The Loan Market and the End of Libor

As the June 30 Libor cessation deadline approaches, host CJ Doherty sat down with Tess Virmani, Deputy General Counsel, Co-Head – Public Policy at the LSTA, to discuss the current state the syndicated loan and CLO markets.
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Episode 13, Season 1

Is Commercial Real Estate the Next Shoe to Drop?

High interest rates and falling property prices are causing turmoil in the commercial real estate market. The remote work situation is adding to fears about a shrinking demand for office space. With defaults on the rise and loans moving to special workouts, Fed policymakers and investors are worried the growing problems in the real estate market is a contagion for the US banking system. Host CJ Doherty discusses the issues with IFR Senior Reporter Richard Leong.
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Episode 12, Season 1

Direct Lending Deep Dive

Host CJ Doherty sits down with Craig Packer, Co-Founder of Blue Owl and CEO of the Owl Rock BDCs, to discuss today’s direct lending market conditions and to look ahead to the rest of the year.
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Episode 11, Season 1

M&A Outlook

M&A activity tumbled in 2022 amid market volatility and economic uncertainty. How has 2023 started and what is in store for the rest of the year? Host CJ Doherty talks to LSEG’s Director of Deals Intelligence Matt Toole about current M&A market conditions.
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Episode 10, Season 1

SVB and Signature Bank Collapse

In less than one week, both Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed over the course of three days. How do these bank failures differ from what the market faced in 2008? What does it mean for the syndicated bank loan market? Host Maria Dikeos talks to Peter B. York, Adjunct Professor at Ohio State University and recently retired Managing Director and Head of large market asset-based loan originations at a major money center bank.
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Episode 9, Season 1

Navigating the Direct Lending Market

US direct lending activity was robust and resilient in 2022, despite an uncertain economic environment. What’s in store for 2023? Host CJ Doherty and guest Diana Diquez talk about recent trends in the direct lending market as lenders navigate changed market conditions.
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Episode 8, Season 1

Leveraged Lending 2023

Coming off a tough 2022, what does US leveraged lending look like as the new year takes shape? Hosts CJ Doherty and Maria Dikeos talk about prospects for the developing pipeline as well as buyside and sellside considerations.
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Episode 7, Season 1

Risk vs. Reward

Host CJ Doherty sits down with Fran Beyers, Head of Capital Markets at Cliffwater, to discuss current conditions in the direct lending market as we approach the end of 2022 and a look ahead to 2023. How will the market play out given the uncertain economic backdrop?
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Episode 6, Season 1

Blackstone Credit Spotlight

Blackstone Credit’s Carlos Whitaker shares his outlook for the private credit market. How are portfolio companies positioned amid the rising rate environment? With 2023 right around the corner, what is he focused on as we head into the new year?
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Episode 5, Season 1

State of the European Lending Space

A look at the European leveraged and investment grade loan markets. Is leveraged lending shut down in Europe? What opportunities have arisen for the private debt space as a consequence of this disruption? And is there a silver lining in the investment grade market?
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Episode 4, Season 1

Sustainable finance in 2022

Looking at the relevance of sustainable finance amid broader market uncertainty, with a focus on corporate loans.
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Episode 3, Season 1

Private Credit 101

Discussing the evolution in private credit and the rapid growth of direct lending in recent years. How did we get here, and where are we headed?
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Episode 2, Season 1

Summer of Volatility

Taking a look at current market dynamics in the leveraged lending space amidst volatility, inflation, and how loans are performing versus other asset classes.
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Episode 1, Season 1

Private Debt Bonanza

Join CJ Doherty, Director of Market Analysis at LSEG LPC and Ioana Barza, Head of Market Analysis at LSEG LPC for a discussion of current trends in private credit, honing in on opportunities and challenges facing BDCs.
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