Lending

Early years education more often than not doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Not from policymakers, not from lenders, and not from the media. And yet the numbers speak for themselves: fewer than one in three local authorities in the UK currently have enough childcare places for children under two, and the DfE estimates the sector needs around 70,000 new places just to meet current demand.

OakNorth’s Ian Fairclough on how AI is reshaping lending decisions for software and technology businesses – and what it means for sponsors and founders raising debt.

OakNorth’s Women in Dealmaking panel on what really matters when choosing a lender – sector knowledge, speed, and access to the decision-maker. Insights from a CFO, debt advisor, PE investor and lawyer.

Last June, at SuperReturn International, the industry’s annual gathering for private equity and credit, the mood around private credit was bullish. Nearly every panel highlighted the relative strength and opportunity in private credit – a golden era, driven by high base rates, public market retreat, and strong LP appetite for yield. 

Today, the tone has shifted sharply. JPMorgan has been marking down the value of software loans sitting in the financing portfolios of private credit clients.

There’s a structural problem at the heart of the UK care sector that’s becoming harder and harder to ignore. The population is ageing, demand for high-quality beds is rising, yet the number of beds actually reaching the market has stayed broadly flat. New homes are being built – but not nearly fast enough, and not always in the right places. Purpose-built, modern care homes represent a small fraction of what’s available today, while an increasingly affluent elderly population is discovering that the stock simply isn’t there to meet their expectations.

Commercial real estate is not rebounding in the way previous cycles have conditioned us to expect. It is recalibrating.

With capital markets still adjusting, occupier behaviour evolving and asset performance under sharper scrutiny, 2026 is shaping up to be a year defined by discipline, execution and selective risk-taking.