‘The Red Thread’ publication by UBS Asset Management is released bi-annually and tackles topics from different angles to help readers find common threads and make sense of important trends. We focus on a chapter from the recent Disruption edition of ‘The Red Thread’ unpacking the history – and looking to the future – of lending disruption. Featuring John Popp, Joe Sciortino and Rodrigo Trelles. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Hello and welcome to the Bulletin with UBS on Monocle Radio.
Each week, the sharpest minds and freshest thinkers in finance take you beyond the numbers and hype right to the heart of the big issues of the day.
This week we're delving into UBS Asset Management's red thread publication.
The Red Thread, formerly Panorama, is released biannually and its recent renaming perhaps speaks to its editorial approach, that is to tackle topics from from many different angles to help readers find a common thread and ultimately make sense of important trends that can help them to better navigate the often complex maze of investing.
The red thread we're pulling at in this edition is the Disruption edition, and in particular, we're focusing on the Filling the Void chapter about the history and the future of lending disruption.
Here to discuss the history and the rise of private lending and to consider what might be next, we have an excellent panel for you.
John Popp is global head of UBS Credit Investments Group.
Joe Shorteno is head of investments for the Americas for Hedge Fund Solutions at UBS Asset Management.
And Rodrigo Trellis of UBS O'Connor, let's start with John Popp from UBS Credit Investments Group.
John started the business as an independent shop back in the 90s.
John Popp, a warm welcome to the show and well, let's go back to the 1990s and talk a bit about the foundations that were laid around that time in the private credit space.
Talk to me, John, about that set the stage for some of what we see today.
It reminds me of seeing a panel a few years ago at the Milken Conference and it was on private debt.
It seemed that year that almost every panel was on private debt.
But one of the new entrants in the market, headed by somebody who'd been around for a while, got up and said, let me talk about the original private debt.
It's broadly syndicated loan market.
And I rolled my eyes because I thought, well, that's a little rich to be up on this panel.
But in a way he was right because to the question that you just asked, loans were always a private market.
And when I started my career in investment banking back in the 80s when a buyout came along, there was Manny Haney, there was Chase, there was Chemical, there was nations bank, there was First Chicago, there was Continental Illinois, you could just keep going down the list.
Then the banks did the bank loan and the the high yield market provided the bond component of a capital structure.