— Insights

Practitioner perspective on private credit and mid-market debt.

Notes from inside the market — on private credit, mid-market lending, fund performance and the realities of getting capital done. Written from the origination and structuring seat by Scott Townsley, investment director and debt adviser, for the investors, sponsors and businesses living these decisions.

Written by Scott Townsley — Investment Director

DPI
> IRR

Featured · Fund performance

DPI Is the New IRR: Why Investors Now Demand Cash, Not Paper

IRR can be engineered and TVPI can be marked — but DPI counts only realised cash. Why it’s overtaking IRR as the metric investors trust, and why strong DPI is won at origination.

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Fund performance
Mid-market access
Market structure
Borrower guidance
Deal craft

Fund performance

DPI Is the New IRR

Why DPI is overtaking IRR in private credit, and why strong DPI is built at origination, not at reporting.

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Coming soon · Mid-market access

Why good mid-market businesses can’t access private credit

Record fundraising, yet sound lower-mid-market companies are starved. What’s happening, and what they can do.

In progress

Coming soon · Market structure

Private credit’s barbell: glut and drought

The capital glut and the capital drought are happening in the same asset class at the same time.

In progress

Coming soon · Deal craft

Dislocated vs distressed

How to tell a fixable mid-market business from a falling knife — a practitioner’s diagnostic.

In progress

Coming soon · Borrower guidance

What a mid-market CEO should ask before taking private credit

The eight questions to bring to the table — and the red flags to watch for in a tightening market.

In progress

Coming soon · Deal craft

Direct lending vs unitranche vs mezzanine

Which structure fits a lower-mid-market borrower — the trade-offs, side by side.

In progress

Coming soon · Market structure

What the AI data-centre debt boom means for everyone else

As capital is vacuumed into hyperscaler financing, what happens to the real-economy borrower?

In progress

Coming soon · Market structure

Is private credit in a bubble?

A lower-mid-market lender’s honest answer — where the risk is real, and where it’s overstated.

In progress

Coming soon · Deal craft

How non-bank lenders price a business banks won’t touch

Inside the underwriting of a sound, sub-investment-grade borrower — and what drives the rate.

In progress

Coming soon · Mid-market access

Why fund consolidation is starving the lower-mid-market

As capital concentrates in mega-funds, the specialist’s opening in the gap they leave behind.

In progress

DPI Is the New IRR: Why Private Credit Investors Now Demand Cash, Not Paper

Private markets have long spoken the language of IRR and TVPI. A growing number of investors now want a blunter measure — how much cash a fund has actually returned. That is why DPI is rising, and why the work of delivering it begins at origination, long before a fund ever reports.

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Occasional, practical notes on private credit and mid-market debt. No noise — just the perspective from inside the deals.

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