In this episode of the Private Markets Outlook series, we sit down with Scott Giardina, Managing Director and Head of Trading for Future Standard’s Global Credit Team, for an in-depth look at the current state of private credit.  

Scott joins Research team members Alan Flannigan and Andrew Korz to discuss the benefit of specialization in private credit, why lender protections matter more than ever and what it means for investors.

The Private Markets Outlook podcast series from Future Standard features portfolio managers from across our firm, each bringing unique perspectives on private equity, private credit and real estate. Subscribe and stay tuned for more.

[00:00:10] Alan Flannigan: Welcome to the fourth installment of our Private Markets Outlook series, a five-part series focused on our midyear 2025 outlook titled Follow the Value Not the Herd. Today's discussion will be focused on the private credit market, which continues to offer investors compelling yields, even as the Fed embarks on an uncertain easing cycle. However, the asset class is anything but monolithic. As it has expanded, the differences between segments of the market have sharpened. In this episode, we want to focus on those distinctions and leave our listeners with a clearer understanding of the opportunities and risks in private credit. Today, as we've observed across private markets, capital has become concentrated within private credit, pooling within a select cohort of lenders and pulling similar strategies within the same segment of the market. Combined with renewed competition from the broadly syndicated loan market, this has compressed new deal spreads in large, direct lending deals, causing investors to recalibrate expectations going forward.

But as the asset class continues to grow and gain market share from traditional lenders, private credit execution is becoming a solution for a broader base of borrowers with a wide range of financing needs. This provides investors an opportunity to take part in the next phase of private credit's growth where diversification and specialization shine, and to tap into the alpha potential that comes from providing solutions, not just options. Today we'll speak with someone with terrific insights on this evolution as he sits right at the intersection of public credit, private credit and the need for specialized strategies. He's the managing director on the Future Standard global credit team and the Head of Credit Trading; Scott Giardina, thank you for joining the show today.

[00:02:04] Scott Giardina: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to join and talk about what we do on a day-to-day basis.