Associate Editor Armie Lee sits down with Tyler Gately, Head of North America Private Credit at Barings, for a candid read on the state of direct lending in 2026. Recorded as Q1 was wrapping up, the conversation cuts through the noise. Tyler opens with a reality check on the private credit headlines (00:00:36), then walks through what is actually driving volume, why add-on activity is accounting for 60 to 70 percent of dollars going out the door (00:01:13), and the fastest market repricing since COVID, with spreads gapping out 50 to 100 basis points as the retail BDC dollar pulls back (00:03:02). He covers the Q2 pipeline and the long-predicted M&A bounce-back question (00:04:45), and explains what this dislocation means for institutional platforms that deploy their own capital (00:08:18).

The second half digs into AI and software risk in private credit, why Tyler thinks the macro fear is overblown (00:10:13), and the new questions Barings is asking software borrowers today (00:12:55). He breaks down the Barings platform and how it has reconstructed the banking landscape for sponsors (00:16:27), the tale of two markets between retail and institutional LPs (00:18:01), and what actually separates a platform worth committing to from one that just looks good on paper (00:21:12). The conversation closes with Tyler's 2026 outlook (00:24:49), what starting his career in the 2008 financial crisis taught him about discipline (00:28:08), and a rapid fire round on mindset shifts, market trends, and what young credit professionals still get wrong (00:32:48).

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Hosted by Armie Lee