Credit Exchange with Lisa Lee

“It could be that Santa came early this year and we started that Santa rally a bit early,” says Jose Aguilar, head of European credit at BlackRock, regarding the European high-yield bond market. Aguilar, who leads the leveraged finance business and oversees the investment-grade team at the world’s largest asset manager ($15 trillion AUM) sits down with host Lisa Lee on the latest episode of Credit Exchange.
Discussing the recent turmoil in the European high-yield bond market attributed to hedge fund selling, Aguilar says that at the moment, things seem to have stabilised – “markets seem to imply that the worst is over” – while acknowledging the technical picture has changed “dramatically” in just a couple of weeks. Aguilar explains there was a significant drawdown, and that was created by the need for some of these funds to de-gross and deleverage. But there’s still plenty of opportunities.
Aguilar also discusses the AI trade, noting that AI is here to stay. “We need that compute capacity, and we will get it one way or another,” he says. “When there is so much money at stake, capitalism will find a way to allocate those resources.”
He also discusses BlackRock’s actively-managed fixed income ETFs in Europe.

This week on Credit Exchange, head of asset-backed finance at Apollo Global Management Bret Leas discusses the recent pullback in AI-related financing. Speaking with host Lisa Lee, Leas unpacks why credit markets are beginning to differentiate more sharply between data centres, chips, and cloud infrastructure, and details how Apollo’s approach to AI lending focuses on cashflow-generating assets rather than speculative bets.
The conversation also dives into the broader macro backdrop, including the role of AI in US economic growth, along with inflation, private credit, and the outlook for Europe. Leas discusses why he remains optimistic about long-term investment opportunities despite market volatility, and why fixed income offers compelling value in today’s environment.
He also breaks down Apollo’s innovative AMAPS platform (Apollo Multi-Asset Prime Securities), how it compares to the CLO market, why transparency matters in private credit, and why he believes the market for diversified credit securities could grow into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

“All roads lead back to AI,” says Matt Eagan, head of the full discretion team at Loomis Sayles & Company, in a special post-midterm election episode of Credit Exchange with Lisa Lee. Eagan, who oversees an $87 billion portfolio of fixed income and is a member of the firm’s board of directors, discusses how a dramatic shift in the political landscape could affect markets, inflation, interest rates, AI investment, and fixed income.
Eagan takes a contrarian view on the potential political headwinds from the election. He believes AI infrastructure investment will continue because both political parties view AI leadership as strategically important.
Eagan discusses why hyperscalers continue to dominate capital markets, and what investors should make of mounting debt issuance across the AI ecosystem. The conversation also dives into Federal Reserve independence, fiscal policy, geopolitical risks, and the growing divide between AI ‘whales’ and ‘guppies’ competing for capital.

Capital structures that are currently being created with lower leverage, in an environment where interest rates are not zero, will likely make for an excellent vintage, says Stephen Ketchum, founder and CEO of Sound Point Capital Management, a global credit specialist with USD 45bn in assets under management, on the latest episode of Credit Exchange with Lisa Lee.
Ketchum discusses the macro economy, inflation (and his long-held contention that we are in a higher-for-longer environment), and artificial intelligence.
“I get more concerned about the cost of our federal debt, which is ballooning,” he says. “That to me is of more concern than the implications it has for the cost of capital for the companies that we lend to.”
The addressable market for AI, and the ability to finance data centres and the ecosystem around them, is monumental. Ketchum says he has tended to be somewhat cautious regarding Sound Point’s consideration of data centre or GPU financing, and the firm has elected to focus instead on the businesses that derive benefits from the data centres. There will be winners and losers, and Ketchum explains how he is already distinguishing between them.
“There’s counterparty risk; there’s geographic risk; there’s all sorts of fundamental credit things to think about” in relation to data centres, he notes. “And then, perhaps most importantly, there’s documentation.”

This week, a special edition of Credit Exchange. Over the last couple of weeks, host Lisa Lee has been attending the ABS East conference in Miami, and the CAIS Alternative Investment Summit in Beverly Hills, to understand the key dynamics currently unfolding in credit.
On this week’s podcast, we hear from Robert Zable, global head of CLOs at Guggenheim Partners; Jared Parker, co-head of North America at Oaktree Capital Management; and Tom Majewski, co-founder and CEO of Eagle Point Credit Management. They share their insights on inflation, artificial intelligence, and the current shape of credit markets.