<div id="readability-page-1"><div> By Joseph Adinolfi and Joy Wiltermuth Big banks are increasingly seeing their shares impacted by worries about underwriting quality at private lenders Morgan Stanley made headlines this past week after having to cap withdrawals from one of its private-credit funds. Private-credit fears have spread from shares of alternative asset managers to big banks that lent money to them, as investors fret about risks lurking in direct lenders' loan books. Over the past week, the S&amp;P 500's SPX financials sector XX:SP500.40 was the index's worst performer as shares of big banks, including Wells Fargo (WFC), have come under pressure in part due to their exposure to private credit. Investors are worried that a flood of money may have caused private-credit firms to loosen underwriting standards as the industry boomed into an estimated $2 trillion market. Also, the adoption of artificial intelligence threatens the business models of many software companies. Software firms have borrowed more from private-credit lenders than any other industry group. See: A toxic mix of private-credit panic and climbing bond yields is hammering financial stocks That is a big shift from one year ago, when private-credit firms and their funds were some of the hottest investments in the financial-services sector. &#34;Over the past 13 months, this sector of the market has gone from red hot to ice cold,&#34; said Julian Klymochko, founder and CEO of Accelerate, an investment firm based in Canada that manages funds with exposure to private credit. A report from Moody's published late last year cited government data showing that U.S. banks with more than $10 billion in assets had $299.3 billion in outstanding loans to various purveyors of private business credit, including business development companies, collateralized loan obligations and others. Many banks also have their own private-credit funds. &#34;Risk is rising, especially for smaller banks: Aggressive growth and competition could weaken underwriting standards and elevate credit risk,&#34; the authors of the Moody's report wrote. <pre> Bank Private-credit exposure (in billions of dollars) Wells Fargo 59.7 Bank of America 33.2 PNC 29.5 Citigroup 25.8 JPMorganChase 22.2 Goldman Sachs 21.7 Truist 19.5 State Street 19.3 Morgan Stanley 16.2 US Bancorp 10.5 Other 41.70 Source: Moody's, Federal Reserve </pre> Reports this week that JPMorgan Chase (JPM) plans to curb lending to the space, after lowering some of its loan valuations, unnerved investors. That's a signal to Wall Street that big banks are highly focused on what problems might be lurking within private credit, said Mark Malek, chief investment officer at Muriel Siebert. &#34;There's no price discovery - that's the problem,&#34; Malek noted. That means it would take another asset sale or liquidity event for banks, private-credit operators and investors to get more clarity on pricing. Despite his reservations, Malek said he's long private-credit, although not increasing positioning or buying the dip in shares of battered companies in the sector. &#34;I still think financials are good to invest in right here,&#34; he said. &#34;I like JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and I like BofA.&#34; Yet anxiety has been building around growing redemption requests that recently prompted several private-credit funds to limit withdrawals. Occasional markdowns of private-credit assets by firms like BlackRock (BLK) and others also raised questions about the performance of the collateral tied to these loans. A few high-profile bankruptcies late last year were reportedly the result of fraud, fueling more skepticism about the quality of firms' marks. Still, the default rates in the sector look relatively contained, according to the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. &#34;The private-credit space, we think, is secure. We are not seeing financial trouble at the banks,&#34; said Paul Christopher, head of global market strategy at the firm. But the conflict in Iran has some worried about the prospect that soaring Treasury yields BX:TMUBMUSD10Y could heap more pressure on lenders. Treasury yields have been rising since the conflict began, and credit spreads on high-yield bonds have started to widen as well, according to data from the Federal Reserve. The ICE BofA U.S. High-Yield Index's effective yield has risen to its highest level since last summer, data showed. Gating redemptions A fresh batch of headlines has contributed to the sense of panic in the private-credit space this week as lenders publicized the latest round of quarterly redemption requests, Accelerate's Klymochko said. Morgan Stanley (MS) and alternative manager Cliffwater became the latest firms to cap redemptions from private-credit funds. Individual investors - primarily high-net-worth families who bought into these funds via a financial advisor - have been asking for their money back in greater numbers since JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon warned of &#34;cockroaches&#34; that could emerge in the private-credit space following high-profile defaults late last year. Investors have absorbed a steady trickle of unsettling headlines ever since. Some of the fear has been driven by the large exposure private credit has to software firms. Shares of publicly traded software companies have been hit hard by fears that AI could threaten their business models. Strategists at BofA Global Research recently pegged loans to software companies as making up about 25% of private lenders' assets. That being said, investors in these funds have a buffer before they would see any losses. Many private-credit firms make secured loans, meaning they're backed by collateral. Before even a dollar of investor money in these funds would be lost, firms holding equity stakes in these companies being lent to by the fund would see their investments wiped out. That hasn't stopped publicly traded business development companies, which are essentially closed-end funds managed by private-credit firms, from seeing a huge selloff over the past few months, alongside shares of the asset managers themselves. Publicly traded BDCs are now trading at a steep discount to their net asset value, according to data from the Cliffwater BDC Index and BDCs.com. The discount can be seen in the chart below. Shares of Blue Owl (OWL) closed at $8.61 on Thursday, their lowest level since late 2022. The company's stock peaked above $26 back in January 2025, FactSet data showed. However, shares rebounded on Friday and finished the week at $8.75. Blue Owl and other private-credit lenders have been holding calls with investors to talk about the wave of redemptions hitting the industry, as Bloomberg News has previously reported. Those calls haven't always calmed investors. &#34;They cut off a bunch of people who wanted their money back,&#34; said Robert Pavlik, a senior portfolio manager at Dakota Wealth Management who was on several recent investor calls. &#34;Is that wrong? Not at all, but it shows the lack of confidence people have in private credit. The more they don't do it, the more confidence is lost and their stock prices drop.&#34; The tone on calls has been jarring, Pavlik noted. &#34;They don't know how to communicate with people. They are probably really smart, but that's not what people want. They want their confidence restored,&#34; he said. The bear case is that a lot of money flowed into this brand-new asset class over the past 15 years, and a lot of these loans are severely impaired, said Hunter Hayes, a portfolio manager at Intrepid Capital. There's an assumption that some of the money was allocated in a sloppy way as lenders rushed to put capital to work. &#34;Everybody is looking under the hood and saying, 'Are these actually credit-worthy loans?'&#34; he said. Another issue: Many big banks lent against private-credit portfolios at relatively low 65% loan-to-value ratios, Hayes said. That is fine if the loan is still valued at par, or 100 cents on the dollar. But where you could see trouble, he added, is if a bank gets worried about loan performance and the need to sell assets emerges, which could force fire sales. Information on the funds' borrowers is publicly available. But many investors have complained that private-credit managers have been slow to update their marks, a process that is mostly opaque. Representatives from Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, Cliffwater and Blue Owl didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from MarketWatch. Representatives from JPMorgan declined to comment. -Joseph Adinolfi -Joy Wiltermuth This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones &amp; Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal. <pre></pre> (END) Dow Jones Newswires 03-14-26 0800ETCopyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones &amp; Company, Inc.</div></div>

BNKU

MSSM

EVHY

Private-credit concerns are impacting big banks, with Morgan Stanley capping withdrawals from its private-credit fund. The S&P 500 financials sector has suffered due to fears over underwriting quality in private lending, particularly affecting banks like Wells Fargo. Reports indicate JPMorgan Chase is reducing lending in this area, raising investor anxiety. Despite some skepticism, default rates remain contained, and experts suggest the private-credit space is secure. However, rising Treasury yields and increased redemption requests from investors are contributing to a sense of panic in the market.

Here are the ways private-credit pain could hurt your portfolio