Alpha Exchange

It was a pleasure to welcome Alex Urdea, Founder and CIO of Deep Ocean Partners to the Alpha Exchange. Alex traces his career from credit derivatives trading at a large bank to a risk management function at a hedge fund focused on distressed investing to ultimately building an asset-backed private credit platform focused on smaller, less trafficked segments of the lending universe. The conversation centers on how regulatory changes following the Global Financial Crisis, prolonged periods of low interest rates, and shifting investor preferences have reshaped where and how credit risk is priced. Alex describes how traditional public credit markets, including leveraged loans and high yield, have increasingly compressed spreads while loosening covenants, reducing compensation for bearing risk. In contrast, private credit has emerged as an alternative channel for borrowers unable to access bank balance sheets, particularly fast-growing businesses that are asset-rich but cash-flow constrained. He emphasizes that cr