Ashwin Krishnan, co-head of North America private credit and the head of opportunistic credit at Morgan Stanley, met with Shubham Saharan at 9fin to discuss opportunistic credit strategies within the private credit market in 2025 as investors look to continue diversifying their holdings. Krishnan explains the growing interest in capital solutions, private markets distressed debt, and asset-based credit strategies and how it has become a core focus of the alternatives platform at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

"Looking ahead we expect there to be a growing need for capital that is being provided to existing portfolio companies in existing funds that need a solution to extend their runway and create opportunities to maximize value for their sponsor owners. Over the past two years we have had a series of macro-driven events, from interest rate increases to geopolitical events that companies and portfolios have faced within a compressed time frame. These effects are still being worked through portfolios and in some cases have caused hold periods of portfolio companies to be longer than originally anticipated. Therefore, owners will likely need more time and capital to effectuate value creation and value maximization,” says Krishnan.