03/09/2026

Thought leadership paper by Jean-Francis Dusch, Global Head of Infrastructure & Structured Finance

Private debt is currently going through a turbulent period and is making headlines in many media outlets. After a decade of virtually uninterrupted growth, driven by banks’ withdrawal from the market and investors’ quest for returns, this asset class — currently estimated at over 2,000 billion dollars and potentially expected to reach 4,500 billion by 2030 — is now the subject of some scepticism.

Withdrawal freezes on certain funds and questions over valuations are signs that are reigniting reactions all too familiar since the subprime crisis.

Some investors and the broader public tend to view private debt as a homogeneous whole. Yet it is precisely this confusion that is fuelling the current mistrust. The reality, however, is quite different. Private debt encompasses a wide range of different strategies, with very disparate risk profiles and distinct performance drivers (direct lending, mezzanine debt, infrastructure debt and property debt, etc.), which do not react in the same way to economic developments.

In the current environment, it is essential for investors to be able to distinguish between highly leveraged financing for a technology company and a loan backed by essential infrastructure.