2026年基础设施贷款调研报告

Executive introduction Contents In 2026, European infrastructure lending is at an unusual point in itsdevelopment. Alongside banks and bonds, private credit as an asset class isnow mainstream in the sector, attracting large pools of institutional capitalon the promise of stable cash flows, downside protection and long-duration 02Executive introduction 05ViewpointWinds of change – regulation and private credit Public and private markets alike are asking harder questions about whetherthe wider private credit market has become too crowded, whetherunderwriting discipline is slipping, and whether today’s structures can 08Findings at a glance10Our findings: The detail19About Ocorian Infrastructure is inherently a long-term investment, with long-term borrowingneeds to match. That makes it a good candidate for bank lenders and debtinvestors – including in private funds. Moreover, it has a very different flavourto, for example, motor finance, where private credit problems have alreadyarisen in the U.S. But it is still right to ask questions. This is an asset class builton long-term certainty, but certainty is in shorter supply than at any point in The current geopolitical situation is clearly a major factor, and it is tippingthe balance in favour of lenders. Market volatility is impacting pricing bothbecause benchmark yields have risen and because spreads for riskier offerings It is against this backdrop that we conducted our survey of industryprofessionals, and the results are encouraging, even if there are notesof caution. The market is best characterised less by exuberance thanby disciplined expansion. The broad message from the survey is that The role of agents matters. Independent agents such as Nordic Trustee, anOcorian company, bring neutrality to infrastructure financing by separatingadministrative and monitoring roles from lenders. Banks often originate,structure, and distribute debt, creating latent conflicts of interest when theyalso act as agent. Outsourcing the agency function improves transparency, Who did we speak to? “Private credit remains attractive, but competitionand higher hurdle rates are making returns harder Our results represent the views of 200 active decision-makers in Europe’score infrastructure debt markets. Most respondents (75%) worked on theinvestment side, evenly split between infrastructure funds, private creditfunds, and infrastructure lending investment banks. The balance mainlyrepresented borrowers - in digital infrastructure, social infrastructure, Methodology We conducted our survey between 18thand 25thMarch, well after hostilities inthe Gulf had begun. Bond markets were already repricing for higher inflation,lower economic growth and greater sovereign debt risk. Our findingstherefore reflect thinking against the backdrop of the current geopolitical Viewpoint: Winds of change – regulation and private credit fund ran into trouble, losses would not stay neatly inside a fund wrapper; theywould feed back into retirement portfolios and future living standards. That is by Cato HolmsenGlobal Head of Capital MarketsNordic Trustee, Ocorian The more immediate issue is visibility. It recalls Donald Rumsfeld’s infamous lineabout decisionmakers: “There are known knowns; there are things we know weknow. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are Private credit has reached a point where regulators can no longer ignore it, butthey have not yet decided what problem they are trying to solve.Start with scale. On the Financial Stability Board’s narrow definition, non-bankfinance (shadow banking) is about $76 trillion. Private credit funds are a smallslice, with roughly $1.8 trillion in AUM, but they are growing fast – Moody’s Regulators do not have a consistent line of sight into the market. They do notknow, in a comparable way, how much lending private credit is doing in theireconomies, how concentrated the exposures are, or how resilient funds would Mutual funds disclose their holdings. Banks report in detail. Private credit The industry’s standard defence is simple: banks are regulated because they takedeposits. If they fail, savers are directly exposed and the payments system is atrisk. Private credit funds do not take deposits, so, the argument goes, they do From regulators’ standpoint, that opacity is real. Private credit, however, willargue it often has more information on underlying borrowers than public-marketpeers. Investors and borrowers tend to have closer relationships, giving deeperoperational and financial insight that is shared with LPs – creating a kind of But that construction is starting to look incomplete. Much of the capital flowinginto private credit comes from pension funds and insurers. It is not retail money Even so, if a systemic issue emerged, public opinion would likely be even lessreceptive to bailing out private credit than it was to rescuing banks during theGFC, and politicians would be alert to the electoral con