Sanket Sinha on Bloomberg: Private Credit Market Remains Positive for Asia

Lighthouse Canton's Managing Director and CEO, Global Asset Management, discusses AI infrastructure, energy and the demand for private credit across Asia.

Watch the interview on Bloomberg

Sanket Sinha, Managing Director and CEO, Global Asset Management at Lighthouse Canton, joined Haslinda Amin on "Insight with Haslinda Amin" on Bloomberg to discuss how Asia's private credit market is moving beyond the headline AI investment and into the physical and financial infrastructure around AI.

Sanket noted that Asia has predominantly been a bank financing market, with more than 70% of credit supply in Asia Pacific provided by banks. Private credit exists for a particular reason: there are certain situations where banks are not able to participate, such as off balance sheet financing, and situations where companies need more than what a bank is ready to lend. Those are the situations where borrowers go for private financing. It also depends on the return on capital employed that the borrower is able to generate on the capital they are raising.

He described this as a global phenomenon, and said that in Asia, AI infrastructure is going to drive capital demand. The market for private credit will turn positive and remain positive going forward.

Key themes from the conversation:

• Infrastructure-led demand: Credit demand is being driven by infrastructure development, with Southeast Asia and India identified as key markets.

• Energy infrastructure: Data centres require a massive amount of energy, and a massive amount of capex is going into energy infrastructure. Sanket identified this as a key driver.

• Structures and covenants: It is important to understand the structures and the underlying covenants well.

• Manager selection: It is important for any allocator, LP and investor to have the right managers who understand the nuances of these agreements and who make sure the structure is right.