Private credit financing has come to play a key role in powering the build out of AI and communications digital infrastructure. Although it shares similarities with investments in traditional infrastructure projects, the field is relatively new, and the playbook is still being written by firms such as Stonepeak.

Stonepeak Credit Partner and Managing Director Rashad Kawmy walks us through the nuances that he and his firm consider while investing in digital infrastructure.

LFI: Relative to corporate direct lending, how does underwriting and structuring debt investments in digital infrastructure differ?

Kawmy: Digital infrastructure incorporates the core tenets of cash flow-focused corporate direct lending and adds to it a deep understanding of the underlying collateral value. Given the complexity associated with digital infrastructure assets, underwriting requires drilling down into the technical details of the asset base to understand the quality of the borrower profile…

AI technology is increasingly harder to ignore. Companies are continually investing in the technology to create efficiency in the workplace, including in private credit. Liquidity, a $3bn asset manager and technology company backed by Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Apollo Global Management, Spark Capital and Meitav Dash, is a real-time due diligence platform that facilitates deploying capital at scale.

Here, Ron Daniel, CEO and co-founder of Liquidity, provides an in-depth perspective on how the firm is using proprietary AI technology and machine learning to source, underwrite and monitor growth stage companies, as well as deploy capital and identify risks before competitors.

LFI: What is the mission of Liquidity?

Daniel: Liquidity is reinventing private credit through advanced AI and human intelligence, investing in growth to mid-market companies globally through flexible capital designed to scale in step with ambition…

Blackstone’s European private credit strategy for eligible individual investors passed its third anniversary in October. Mike Carruthers, the firm’s European head of private credit, talks with LFI about how the market has developed in that time, and evaluates incoming trends.

LFI: How has the private credit industry evolved since your private credit strategy for individuals launched three years ago?

Carruthers:

The European private credit market has grown and matured as a long-term strategy for eligible investors. The scale and diversity of capital being raised across individual, insurance and institutional channels is having a transformative impact on the market…

In its latest Q&A, LFI spoke with Shawn Cooper, portfolio manager at Orchard Global – an $8.8bn AUM alternative asset manager with over $1bn invested in CLOs globally.

He discussed why he currently prefers CLO mezzanine debt over CLO equity, which risk factors he is monitoring, CLO manager tiering, and expectations as the market heads into 2026.

LFI: Where do you see value in CLOs heading into the final few weeks of 2025?

 

Cooper:

Relative value has bounced around this year, but what’s not good value is currently more obvious than what is. Right now, primary CLO equity doesn’t feel like a great place to be. That’s because…

Joe Rotondo is senior portfolio manager on MidOcean Partners’ credit investment team. ł˘ąó±őĚýrecently caught up with Rotondo to hear his perspectives on the evolving balance of power between BSL and private credit, loan spread compression and the encroachment of AI, among other topics.

LFI: In the weeks since the Fed’s September rate cut ,we’ve seen a string of M&A transactions materialize, giving a much-needed injection of new money to the loan market. Trump’s tariff actions of the last few days, however, appear to have dampened deal flow and stoked some fear in the market. What are your expectations around interest rates, fund flows and M&A through the balance of the year?

 

Rotondo: First, although tariff policy driven volatility has pushed loan priced lower, it has caused the trend of loan repricings to slow significantly. The abatement of this trend is a positive for CLO cash flow arb…

In its latest Q&A, LFI spoke with Elena Rinaldi, portfolio manager at TwentyFour Asset Management, about where she sees value across CLO tranches, how the team approaches manager selection, and what are the structural and collateral red flags in today’s market.

Rinaldi also discusses reasons for and against rolling into CLO resets, the firm’s recent investment in CLO equity, and its appetite for US CLOs.

LFI: Where do you see value across CLO tranches today?

Elena Rinaldi: The start of Q4 has been notable for a shift in risk sentiment. On one side are the renewed China-US trade tensions, on the other, an increase in idiosyncratic credit issues, like the sudden bankruptcy of Tricolor and First Brands, the latter active in the leveraged loan market…

One year after launching Europe’s first Triple A CLO ETF, LFI caught up with Miguel Ramos Fuentenebro, co-founder and partner at Fair Oaks Capital, to discuss progress of the Fair Oaks AAA CLO Fund (FAAA).

The discussion covered the CLO ETF’s performance to date, the expanding investor base, and how the ETF handled recent bouts of volatility. Other topics included potential growth in the European CLO ETF domain, Triple A buying opportunities, and the outlook for the Euro CLO market throughout the rest of 2025.

LFI: How has investor appetite for the FAAA evolved since launch?

Ramos Fuentenebro: At launch we saw interest mainly from investors already familiar with the asset class. Since then, demand has broadened to include multi-asset allocators, wealth platforms, and private banks who value floating-rate, Triple A exposure in a UCITS ETF…

As Europe gears up for a busy autumn in the CLO market, LFI spoke to Gauthier Reymondier, Bain Capital Credit’s head of European liquid and structured credit strategies, and a portfolio manager for Bain’s European CLOs, to discuss the current state of play.

The discussion included why demand for European CLO equity is strengthening, and why day-one arbitrage matters less than how managers navigate volatility. Reymondier also outlines the prospects for liability costs, his top asset picks and what he’s avoiding when building a new CLO portfolio today.

LFI: How is demand for European CLO equity shaping up?

Reymondier: Net demand for European CLO equity is positive, and that’s supported by several interconnecting factors. Many CLO managers have been raising – and continue to raise – money for captive CLO equity strategies from investors that want to invest in programmatic issuance from one CLO manager…

As the private credit market has grown and matured, funds are finding new ways to generate liquidity from their investments as traditional exit routes – M&A and IPOs – have been subdued over the past couple of years. Although a nascent market, credit secondaries are increasingly providing creative opportunities for seasoned investors to acquire private credit assets at discounted prices.

LFI spoke to Olga Kosters, head of credit secondaries and managing director of liquidity solutions at Antares Capital, which recently closed a $1.2bn continuation fund, to gain insights into the current credit secondaries landscape and provide a glimpse of what may lie ahead.

LFI: What is driving the interest and growth in the private credit secondaries market?

Kosters: Private credit secondaries has grown and developed to $1.7trn in assets under management, but it’s much smaller compared to private equity secondaries….