Erik Hirsch on Bloomberg Markets: March 12

Matt, nice to be with you. I think what you're seeing here is contagious fear. What we're not seeing in the headlines are a slew of defaults or rising default rates. What we're not seeing in the headlines is equity coverages dropping or interest coverage rising. What we're seeing is a lot of panic. And so we've got a lot of headlines out there and what we're seeing is people wanting to get out of these private credit vehicles because they're worried about what might happen because nothing is happening right now that's actually negative.

Well, as you said, Matt, we're a big investor in private credit. We're both doing that directly as a lender into companies and we are putting capital into private credit managers. What that should tell you is we have incredible visibility on the books of these managers and are able to look inside to see what's actually happening in terms of credit performance. And as you noted, I did put capital right back into Hamilton Lane. I'm seeing the information. I'm seeing the data and I'm not seeing things that are flashing warning signs. Also, I think we need to be clear. Saying private credit as an entire entity is like saying there's a problem with all stocks. Private credit is a huge space that entails all different kinds of lending. It simply means that you're going and lending to private companies, but the types of companies that we're talking about vary as dramatically as what you see across the stock market. So lending to someone who's doing a dental practice roll up or lending to a software business, those are both private credit, but those are two totally different ends of the risk spectrum. And right now investors are not distinguishing between that.