Private Credit’s Growing Portfolio Utility & Importance

Insights from The Market Group DACH Investors Retreat 2026 | Bad Wörishofen, Bavaria

When the asset class that has outperformed public markets is itself put to the test, what does its growing portfolio utility actually look like — and what are the opaque risks investors must understand before they allocate?

The Market Group DACH Investors Retreat, hosted at the Steigenberger Hotel Der Sonnenhof in Bad Wörishofen, Bavaria, from May 4th to May 6th, 2026, brought together institutional and qualified investors from across the German-speaking region for three days of focused dialogue on the questions defining private markets today.

Among the conversations that featured prominently was one of the most consequential in the asset class right now: the role of private credit in institutional and wealth portfolios. The asset class has continued to grow, the case for portfolio integration has strengthened, and yet the events of recent weeks have placed the architecture of private credit — particularly the structures designed to broaden access — squarely under the microscope. Against this backdrop, our panel set out to answer four questions posed by the official forum pitch: how the asset class is performing in the current environment, how investors are valuing opportunities across the credit spectrum, where alpha is being found, and what the opaque risks are.

Moderator:

Dr. Marie-Laure Mikkelsen, Founding Partner, Alfinas Alternative Investment Advisers

A Tribute to Our Panelists

•   Marcus Storr, Head of Alternative Investments, FERI — the institutional fund-of-funds and manager-selection lens;

•   Justine Kreis, Founder & Managing Director, Swiss Alternative Advisors — the independent practitioner’s perspective, drawn from frameworks built across UBS, Credit Suisse, and HSBC;

•   Luc Maruenda, Partner & Head of Wealth Solutions, Eurazeo — the GP and originator perspective, with deep expertise in European evergreen structures.

Key Insights from the Discussion

Performance: Cyclical or Structural?

The panel converged on a nuanced view: part of private credit’s recent outperformance is cyclical and will normalize, but a meaningful portion reflects a genuine structural shift — banks retreating from middle-market lending under regulatory capital pressure, and institutional demand for floating-rate income firmly entrenched. The next five years are unlikely to deliver the headline returns of the past five — but the asset class’s portfolio utility, properly understood, remains intact.

Defining Alpha Before Looking For It

In private credit, the term alpha is used loosely — sometimes to describe illiquidity premium, sometimes leverage, sometimes manager selection, sometimes structural inefficiency capture. The originator’s working definition: real alpha, stripped of beta and leverage, comes from origination access, structuring skill, and workout capability. The institutional allocator added that for fund-of-funds buyers, manager dispersion has now become a genuine alpha source in its own right — with the spread between top-quartile and median managers wider than ever. The practitioner’s message was that what separates a thoughtful approach from a yield-chasing one is sizing carefully, pacing deliberately, and resisting allocations driven primarily by leverage layered on beta.

The Architecture of Access: Evergreens, Secondaries, and Allocation Discipline

The most substantive exchange of the panel emerged on how investors should construct private credit exposure today — and on the role of evergreen and continuation fund structures. The originator made a measured case for the strategic value of evergreens for investors lacking the resources to manage commitment programs, while explicitly calling for greater transparency from general partners — a position of real intellectual courage from the GP seat. The institutional allocator countered that liquidity can now be accessed through a maturing secondary market for closed-end funds. The practitioner shared that across the frameworks she built neither evergreen nor continuation funds were retained as preferred vehicles for private investors, on grounds of pricing transparency and exit clarity.

Opaque Risks & the Valuation Question

On opaque risks, the panel surfaced what may be the single most important valuation discipline question facing the asset class today: should the haircuts now routinely observed on secondary trades of private equity fund interests be expected to apply, in some form, to private credit fund interests as well? The mechanism is the same — when a buyer prices a fund interest in a real transaction, the resulting price is a market test of the manager’s reported marks. As the private credit secondary market matures, the implications for the valuation methodology of evergreen and other permanent-capital structures become unavoidable.

The Headline Takeaway

Beyond the substantive disagreements, the panel reached a unanimous point of agreement that I believe deserves to be the headline: investors must feel encouraged — indeed obliged — to ask the hard questions of their managers. The ones that may be uncomfortable. About valuation methodology, liquidity matching, alignment of interests. And as the GP perspective on our panel made clear, the best general partners welcome those questions, because transparency is ultimately what builds long-term credibility. This is, in our view at Alfinas, the defining cultural shift the asset class needs as it enters its next chapter.

Closing Remarks

A heartfelt thank you to Marcus, Justine, and Luc for their substantive contributions, candour, and rigor — and to Vanessa Orlarey and The Market Group team for once again hosting the right conversation at the right moment.

To the audience: your engaged listening and thoughtful questions made the panel what it was. Thank you.

Continuing the Conversation

At Alfinas, we are continuing the work in our advisory practice on how institutional allocators and qualified private investors should be thinking about private credit allocation in this environment, on operational due diligence, and on the secondary market opportunity set that may be one of the most interesting entry points in the asset class today.

How are you navigating these questions in your own portfolio? Let’s keep the dialogue going.

Team Alfinas

Learn More

The full Field Notes from this panel are also available as a PDF on our blog — designed for archiving and internal sharing within investment teams.

📄 Download Alfinas Field Notes No. 1 / 2026 (PDF) 7 pages · DACH Investors Retreat · May 2026

Alfinas_Field_Notes_No_2_2026_DACH_Retreat.pdf

Download PDF • 20KB

For more information about The Market Group DACH Investors Retreat 2026, visit marketsgroup.org 

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Strategic Advisory at Alfinas

The Alfinas team provide tailored strategic reviews and advisory services for institutional allocators and qualified investors looking to assess, structure, or expand their private credit exposure.

For inquiries regarding OCIO mandates, portfolio positioning, or private debt strategy, please reach out via our Contact Page or connect directly with us on LinkedIn.

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Disclaimer. This document has been prepared by Alfinas Alternative Investment Advisers for informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice, an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy any security or interest in any fund, nor should it be construed as a recommendation to enter into any transaction. The views expressed reflect those of the panel discussion summarized herein and of the author at the time of writing, and may differ from views held by other professionals at Alfinas. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Recipients should obtain independent professional advice before acting on any information contained herein