In the rapidly evolving world of private credit, scale can be a competitive advantage, but only if it is matched with discipline. Bryan High, managing director and head of global private finance at Barings, offered a detailed insight into the firm’s approach during his appearance at the Investment Leaders Forum in New Zealand. His core message was as straightforward as it was urgent: capital preservation is the cornerstone of long-term success in private credit, and achieving it requires a deep commitment to underwriting quality, relationship-driven origination and structural control.
Barings, originally the captive manager of insurance giant MassMutual, brings a long-duration mindset to the private capital landscape. That insurance heritage has instilled a culture focused less on quarterly performance and more on capital stewardship over decades. “‘Don’t lose money’ is rule number one, two and three,” High said. “We’re not thinking in terms of the next quarter, but the next 30 to 60 years”.
This perspective guides Barings’ approach to underwriting. Every deal is assessed from the bottom up, with a strict filter applied at both sector and structural levels. High highlighted sectors with inherently higher risk, commodity-linked businesses, cyclical sectors, high-capex models and low-margin operators as areas Barings deliberately avoids. “You might get 50 basis points more from a deal in those sectors, but one or two mistakes will wipe that out,” he said.
Barings’ underwriting team places equal weight on both the financial metrics and the legal documentation. Covenant packages are not just about financial ratios, High argued, but also about structuring protections that can be enforced if something goes wrong. “The spread matters, but the ability to get your money back matters more. Our loss rate since inception is three basis points, and that’s not by accident,” he said.
That success is partly enabled by Barings’ role as lead agent in more than 90 per cent of its deals. “We hold the pen,” High explained. “We negotiate the documents and we live with the consequences. When something breaks, we’re at the table driving the solution.” Whether it means working constructively with sponsors or taking control and injecting new money, Barings ensures it retains the contractual leverage necessary to protect its downside.
The firm’s sweet spot is what High calls the “core middle market,” companies with EBITDA between US$15 million and US$75 million ($23 million–$115 million). At this size, sponsors are large enough to require meaningful capital but still small enough to allow for bespoke structuring. “You can still get real terms at that level,” he said, drawing a contrast with the upper market, where large credit funds are increasingly competing with covenant-light CLO-(collateralised loan obligations)-driven deals that erode lender protections.
Another core belief at Barings is that scale should not come at the cost of uniqueness. High warned against the increasing portfolio overlap between private credit managers, especially in large deals with 30 to 50 lenders. “You end up buying three different managers with the same portfolio,” he said. “That’s not diversification, it’s concentration risk.”
Instead, Barings aims to build portfolios around differentiated deal flow, leveraging the breadth of the organisation across asset-backed finance, real estate, private equity co-investments and capital solutions. “We try to be relevant to sponsors in more ways than just senior secured LBO lending,” High said. This multi-dimensional approach helps to secure deal flow, especially during more challenging markets.
High also emphasised that underwriting quality is not just about analytics, it is about judgment and relationships. Poor management teams and flawed acquisition strategies are often behind underperformance, he said. “The themes are consistent across failed deals. It’s less about missing a number and more about backing the wrong people or strategy,” he noted.
Relationships, he argued, play a critical role in the private credit model. Longevity and consistency build trust, especially in sponsor-backed finance where the same firms may return for capital across cycles. “In difficult situations, people remember how you behave,” High said. “We’re willing to lean-in on rate or structure, but we do that with the partners we’ve known for decades.”
Where Barings differs most is in its handling of complexity. The firm’s Capital Solutions team, which High formerly led, operates like a clean-up crew for deals that fall outside the standard credit box. “We’re the janitors at the end of the conveyor belt,” he said with characteristic humility. These are nuanced, often harder-to-source opportunities that come with structuring risk but also deliver a solutions premium well above typical direct lending returns.
The capital solutions business also illustrates how Barings sees the full capital stack, not just senior debt, as investable. “It could be senior secured, mezzanine, or even equity,” High said. The aim is to be flexible and opportunistic, while still prioritising capital protection above all else.
This conservatism may seem cautious in a market often driven by yield compression and capital velocity, but High sees it as essential. “Private credit is a ‘beta’ asset class. You’re not going to outperform massively on rate. The way to stand out is by making sure you get your money back,” he said.
Ultimately, the combination of scale, underwriting discipline and structural control gives Barings a distinctive position in the global private finance ecosystem. With more than US$55 billion ($84.6 billion) in private credit assets, the firm is large enough to be relevant, but focused enough to be selective. It is that balance, between reach and rigour, that underpins the model.
For financial advisers, the takeaway is clear. The real differentiation in private credit is not in who offers the highest yield, but in who can consistently preserve capital while investing at scale. As High concluded, “When we talk about being ‘at the table,’ it means we’re making sure we don’t lose money. That’s what our clients expect, and that’s what our platform is built to do.”