The chief executive of insurance company Kuvare told attendees at a California investment conference that his firm has been collaborating with regulatory officials and rating agencies regarding its private credit investment portfolio.
During Wednesday’s panel discussion at the 2026 Milken Institute Conference in Beverly Hills, CEO Dhiren Jhaveri addressed current market conditions alongside other industry executives. The conversation covered both opportunities and obstacles in private lending, particularly amid ongoing Middle East tensions and investor worries about direct lenders’ ties to software firms facing artificial intelligence disruption.
Jhaveri expressed support for the increased regulatory attention his company has received concerning its financial position and investment strategy for policyholder funds in private credit markets.
“This is the power of having a strong, long-duration, long-term balance sheet,” Jhaveri stated. “We have the benefit and curse of trying to figure out how to invest $6 billion of policyholder premiums every year.”
The insurance giant participated in a February transaction where multiple firms acquired a $1.4 billion loan collection from private credit company Blue Owl to help address fund redemption demands. Jhaveri emphasized the positive returns Kuvare achieved from this acquisition.
During a separate conference panel focusing on recent private credit market pressures, DoubleLine CEO Jeffrey Gundlach warned about risks associated with increased payment-in-kind arrangements, where borrowers add unpaid interest to their loan principal. He also criticized lenders for inflating loan valuations.
“They’re not performing, but they’re on the books as performing,” Gundlach explained. “You should be marking that loan down very significantly,” he added.
PIMCO’s global co-head of asset-based finance, Kristofer Kraus, identified another concern: a significant volume of private credit loans to software and technology companies approaching maturity dates.
“I think in ’28 and ’29 is when you really begin to have some pretty material sizes that need to work their way through the system,” Kraus explained. “So I think that that’s going to be part of that opportunity set that, I think, has become a lot more interesting as we look at direct lending and how some of these names are, frankly, going to have to be refinanced.”
Representatives from DoubleLine and PIMCO did not provide immediate responses to requests for additional comment.
