KBRA attended the Private Credit Connect: East conference, held on October 20 at the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami. With up to 720 attendees, the conference reflected the changing tide in the private credit landscape, where direct lenders shared stages and meeting rooms with asset-based financiers and fund finance professionals.
Across wide-ranging topics, the tone was mostly business-as-usual compared to similar conferences over the past year, which had a degree of uncertainty due to geopolitical or policy changes. Speakers described their existing portfolios as fundamentally sound amid a cooling economy. In fact, recent credit cycle headlines predicting a wave of broader credit events appeared puzzling to most, given actual portfolio performance and the extensive risk management tools available to private lenders. However, many expressed a preference for higher credit quality or collateralized assets backed by cash flow in this environment.
Structural Growth Drivers in Private Credit
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