Huw Van Steenis
The Navigator
Judgement in the fog, money, risk and the call others cannot make.
Huw Van Steenis demonstrates a Navigator's command throughout this interview, charting the structural evolution of private credit with precision and calibrated confidence. He maps the terrain across multiple acts: regulatory post-crisis reshaping, the insurance capital pivot, and the emerging wealth democratization wave. Rather than advocating with zealotry, Van Steenis consistently triangulates risk and opportunity, correcting reductive framings with granular data and historical analogies. His rebuttal of systemic risk fears is methodical, grounded in leverage ratios, duration matching, and the real-world stress test of 2023. He coined the barbell concept two decades prior and now applies it to fixed income with the same architectural clarity. His style is that of a trusted cartographer who helps institutions find their footing in unfamiliar but navigable terrain, always naming what is known, unknown, and worth watching next.
“From the financial crisis to the pandemic, a trillion dollars of extra balance sheet was created in private credit in the US, and maybe about half a trillion in Europe and Asia.”
“The private credit industry has structurally lowered its cost of capital and therefore it can be competitive for a far broader range of loans than it could when it was offering a 12% loan to a private equity-backed acquisition.”
“If you're saving for retirement in 25 years' time, to be stuck in only daily liquidity funds almost seems the wrong thing to do. Our parents all had access to fine benefit schemes where they could invest five, ten, fifteen percent in private assets.”
Money Maze Podcast: “Private Credit: Hype, Hazard, or the Next Big Thing in Long-Term Growth? With Huw Van Steenis, Vice Chair of Oliver Wyman.”
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