Julie Miecamp, Deputy Global Head of Editorial at
Octus, opens the episode by framing a European private credit market bracing for a software reset, a refinancing wall building toward 2028, and a higher-for-longer rate environment that's quietly rewritten the playbook. The real risk, she notes, isn't the one everyone's arguing about. She then hands off to
Lucia Camblor, Deputy Head of Private Credit and Deal Origination at Octus, in conversation with
Mathew Cestar, President at
Arini.
Two decades into building leverage finance at
Credit Suisse and advising
ICG's leadership, Cestar walks through why Arini exited software lending 18 to 24 months ago, well ahead of the reset now forcing the industry to explain itself (
04:19), why the nearer-term threat to tech-heavy portfolios is cost of capital rather than AI disruption (
08:49), and why years of pent-up restructuring in private markets are still working their way through the system (
14:43). He pushes back on the assumption that scale equals safety in large-cap direct lending (
17:10), makes the case for pan-European diversification over single-country concentration (
19:04), and closes with why sponsorless lending, ABF, real estate credit, and infrastructure are the next legs of European debanking (
27:04).