Trouble brewing in direct lending?

Send us Fan MailThe direct lending market in Europe, where funds lend directly to companies rather than through a bank intermediary, has blossomed over the last decade or so, giving businesses that typically cannot issue bonds access to an alternative source of capital to bank funding, which itself has not always been easy to come by. Direct lenders, for their part, have attracted investment from all manner of institutional investors looking for juicier returns than they can find in public markets, while offering the companies they lend to a deep, long-term lending relationship. But with yields vanishing across capital markets, just how are direct lenders maintaining returns and are their end investors paying enough attention to the risks they are taking on?