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Investors spooked by the implosion of auto lender Tricolor Holdings and car-parts supplier First Brands Group got little reassurance Tuesday from the head of the biggest US bank.
“My antenna goes up when things like that happen,” Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s chief executive officer, said on a call with analysts. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but when you see one cockroach, there are probably more. Everyone should be forewarned on this one.”
The pair of bankruptcies were a shock for the credit markets, where companies have been borrowing at a record pace while handing investors outsized returns. And Dimon, fresh off posting results that put his bank on track for another record year, said there could be more pain than usual when the economy takes a turn for the worse. In drawing attention to investors’ growing disillusionment with public vehicles that hold private-debt investments, Dimon touched on a niche corner of the market where investors are on the lookout for signs of widening cracks in debt markets.
Investors have been fleeing BDCs, seen as a proxy for the $1.7 trillion private-credit market, as they cut distributions available to shareholders. That has opened a widening gap between the broader equity market and private-credit BDC stocks. Last month, the $75 billion non-traded Blackstone Private Credit Fund, the largest in the industry, said it was reducing its shareholder payouts.
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