Instead, people like Ken Kencel — CEO of Churchill Asset Management, a private credit division of asset management giant Nuveen — held court.
In the next decade, he predicted that private credit shops and direct lenders could fill in the holes in the asset-based lending space, as well as home and auto loans.
Private credit — or alternative credit or direct lending — is a subsect of finance that has grown rapidly thanks to higher interest rates and distressed banks.
Higher interest rates are forcing institutions — the pensions and endowments that make up hedge funds' biggest investors — to rethink their portfolios.
But while the Bridgewater founder had the rapt attention of the room, it was at a direct lending panel a couple of hours later when an ambitious audience member pitched himself to the private credit executives onstage.
Persons:
Ray Dalio, Cliff Asness, Ken Kencel, —, I've, Banks, Gregory Robbins, Jan Van Eck
Organizations:
Greenwich Economic, Churchill Asset Management, Golub Capital, Bridgewater
Locations:
Greenwich, China