



Private credit is on the hunt for credit-card debt
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.When Wells Fargo told the fintech Bilt that it would no longer be the lender for its rent-rewards credit card, Bilt scrambled to find another large bank partner. When that failed, Bilt wound up with private-credit funding.In February, Bilt struck a deal to move roughly $1.2 billion of credit-card balances with funding arranged by a group including Blue Owl Capital and Stone Point Capital as well as Goldman Sachs and TD, according to people familiar with the deal.The companies also agreed to fund hundreds of millions of dollars of credit-card balances that Bilt cardholders will incur in the future, the people said.Consumer debt has become one of the hottest categories in private credit, increasingly sought after by funds and investment arms of insurance companies on the hunt for high-yielding investments.Private credit is in focus on Wall Street right now because of the loans that fund managers have made to software and other companies, often as part of private-equity buyouts, that are now running into trouble.
Investors are pulling money away.In consumer debt, the private-credit engine is powering a variety of companies including financial-technology firms to turn out more and more loans.Imagine a Harley-Davidson customer at the dealer who takes out a loan to purchase a new motorcycle. The loan is provided by Harley-Davidson Financial Services, which has a deal to sell about two-thirds of its new loans to KKR and the bond giant Pimco.
Funds run by those firms get a debt security backed by the hog, and Harley gets to make another loan to the next customer quickly. The customer sees no apparent difference, as Harley continues servicing the loan.The same thing is happening when consumers
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