Brookfield's Oaktree ready to pounce on private credit's looming 'loan maturity wall'
A deluge of private credit loans written during COVID will soon need to be refinanced at much higher rates — or restructured.
Brookfield Oaktree Wealth Solutions is eyeing opportunities from a looming "maturity wall" as private credit loans struck during the depths of the COVID-19 crisis begin to mature and need to be refinanced at higher rates or restructured.
Jeremy Hall, Singapore-based head of international at the private wealth unit of investment giant Brookfield, told Capital Brief that a lot of the over-levered loans would soon come to maturity and pose both an opportunity and risk for private credit managers.
“Oaktree did a number of investments back in 2020, 2019, and 2021 where you had particular companies that were fundamentally good companies, but their balance sheet was stretched and needed a capital solution to get them through,” he said.
“Potentially there would be some opportunities there. And it’s not so much that the private credit underwriting was a problem, but the overall package of financing, the capital structure, was over levered. And so there may be some opportunity within some of these loans to be refinanced that come back to the market.”
