Apr 11, 2025

Ins and outs of Private Credit...2025

Hi all,

Had a bunch of questions about PC, and decided to post on here to see if I could get them cleared up. As follows:

  1. What is private credit & how is it different from private equity / VC/ asset- based finance / LevFin? What does a day - to - day look like (hours etc)?
  2. I feel like PC has exploded in popularity recently...why is that, and what is the forecast for the industry over the next 5-10 years?
  3. Obligatory prestige whore question -> how "prestigious" is PC considered in the broader business / finance community? Do you predict it increasing / decreasing in prestige?
  4. What does the tier list of PC firms look like as of now, and how does compensation compare to other careers like corp finc, consulting, IB, PE etc?
  5. What is the best way to break into the field ( is it considered an exit, with a lot of experienced professionals, or a feeder with lots of junior hiring)? Ideal background? What makes it 'interesting'? Who is it for? Target schools?
  6. Is it a 'technical' career? If so, is it DCF / LBO type technical or something else entirely? 

    Apologize for having a bunch of questions, but I decided to lump them all together instead of making multiple posts. Thanks in advance!!

12 Comments
 
Most Helpful
  1. Private credit would touch on each of these groups depending on what type of investing the firm does. Every strategy will be a bit different. There is a large difference in diligence, underwriting, and structuring in direct lending vs. private credit (which may include junior capital debt or debt like providers) and also in non-sponsored PC vs. sponsored PC. So it is not a one size fits all. PE vs. PC, PE is looking to hit doubles, triples and home runs, PC wants their money back with their accrued interest. PE investors must think of the upside potential, while a PC investor is focused on getting their principal back. Generally if you are more pessimistic and skeptical, PC is a better fit, while opposite is true for PE. In non-sponsored PC, the underwriting is fairly similar to PE because the buck stops at you as you are the only institutional capital around the table whereas traditional sponsor lenders try to utilize the PE firms work for their underwrite, trusting that the PE firm has done their diligence.
    1. VC mindset is very much about spreading their bets on a lot of opportunities and hitting homeruns, so it's a very different mindset that PE or PC, though some PC firms do engage in some venture lending opportunities if the business is real enough.
    2. Asset based is also quite diverse in terms of the people within it, but it is usually categorized within the broader PC bucket. There are regular way asset based lenders, stressed ABLs, distressed ABLs, back leverage facilities, receivables lenders, the list can go on and on. So there is a lot in there as well. But generally you can think of ABL investors being hyper intelligent on understanding the value of the underlying assets in a liquidation and lending against those assets, while the classic PC investor is focused on what people in the industry call cash flow lending (that is, based on the cash flows or enterprise value of the business as opposed to the underlying assets). There are super sleepy roles in ABL and also very interesting roles in ABL given the higher velocity stuff you can do.
    3. Lev fin is the pipeline for people to usually join PE/PC/ABL as their interaction daily is with these firms. Leveraged finance bankers are "selling" the product to PE/PC/ABL after being engaged by a company looking for leveraged capital. Day to day is focused on selling the opportunity to the other side, while the other side is trying to decide if they want to buy the opportunity.
  2. The banks used to do this type of lending, but with restrictions since '08, this has moved off balance sheet, hence the growth of PC. It's better for society that this happened as PC firms have limited partners who know they are taking risks as investors as opposed to trying to use bank deposits as the collateral to underwrite credit opportunities at large investment banks.
  3. I am not sure what you are looking for here when you say prestige as this is something I think people don't care about after undergraduate or a couple years out of college. After a few years, no one really cares anymore and it becomes more about are you a good investor, can you produce and are you happy in your job, given this industry is a marathon and you have to find something you enjoy to stay with it. If you want to use compensation as a gauge of prestige, then I would say parts of PC are very attractive then, as there are quite a lot of people that make more in PC than their PE/HF/IB counterparts and there are also funds that pay terribly versus PE/HF/IB. It is very strategy dependent (special situations vs. regular way sponsor lending for example and scaled vs. non-scaled platform). I don't know if prestige changes over time, but compensation in this space will remain strong as there are tailwinds to PC, meaning there will be more demand for the product, driving more people, and more money to spread around.
  4. I somewhat answered above, but pay will be very tied to your target return hurdles typically, so you can use that as a gauge. SS/mezz/stress/distress should make similar cash range as PE if not more depending on performance. Regular way gets paid roughly 30-40% less than this bucket. IB is tough to compare because a huge year could blow out all buy side investors, but on average PE/PC should make more because they are taking on risk. If I had to force rank pay tiers in PC will be likely be the below:
    1. Special situations
    2. Mezz/Jr. Cap
    3. Stressed / distressed ABL (if not combined with SS)
    4. Regular way direct lending
    5. Regular way ABL
  5. Lev fin banker, restructuring banker is usually the target demographic for PC recruiting. If you are doing very regular way sponsor lending, commercial banking makes it in there as well. Target schools are the typical ones for finance.
  6. Yes, technical. Again, depends on what you are focused on, but it is a technical profession. 
 

For valuation it is a wide approach and will depend on the transaction. DCF, LBO, sum of the parts, runoff/winddown cash flow value analysis, hard asset value, IP value, liquidation value, public comparables with haircuts, transaction comparables, 363 sale comparables.  

For modeling, traditional LBO modeling with operating drivers. SS will be more granular likely than traditional DL.

As a note here, modeling is generally a farce in the industry as no one will ever model a company correctly, but it is used to show what would happen to the company under a set of certain circumstances. Once you have the basics of modeling down you realize how much of a joke it truly is. You will build the most granular model of your life just for the revenue growth to spit out GDP + 3%. Or to have a senior member of the team tell you to tweak the 2000 row assumptions you made because it should look like GDP + 4.5% instead of GDP + 3% because the numbers don't "look good". 

 

Incoming SA in commercial banking at a large bank (Citi,HSBC, Wells) this summer, do you have any tips / advice for my best chance to break into PC down the road? I'm most likely going to stay in a graduate program for 2-3 years if i get the return offer after this summer. Thx

 

It is entirely about networking aggressively early and consistently. Do not be afraid of rejection / people not responding to your cold emails / cold linkedin messages. Reach out to anyone that is at a firm that you are interested in and see if you can get coffee with them to slowly build the relationship. Then in two-three years time, you can hope some of these individuals team's are looking to add and you'll get the first look. Other route is just to be right place, right time with recruiters.

 

Do you see RX consultants that do primarily debtor side work being viable candidates for PC roles?

 

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