Ares’ Jacobson Sees ‘Disconnect’ Between Headlines and Holdings

There’s a “real disconnect between many of the headlines that are being reported and what we are actually seeing in our portfolio,” Ares co-president Blair Jacobson said in a Bloomberg TV interview in response to a question about the latest redemption requests at Cliffwater’s flagship private credit fund.

• “We get signals from around 3000 companies around the world,” Jacobson said, and “they’re growing 8% to 12% a year”
• “There’s a lot of discussion and anxiety about distress — we’re not seeing it,” he added, saying that non-accrual rates are lower than the historical average
• While he acknowledged the macroeconomic volatility ...