[https://www.ft.com/content/06213ba6-5634-4c1c-b949-07013824c79f](https://www.ft.com/content/06213ba6-5634-4c1c-b949-07013824c79f)
A large credit fund managed by KKR tumbled on Thursday after reporting a jump in troubled loans and lower investment income, highlighting the mounting strains in private markets. FS KKR Capital Corporation, a publicly traded vehicle holding private loans, dropped 15 per cent after saying that it would slash its dividend and the valuation of the assets within its portfolio. The markdowns of the FSK fund come amid fears of rising defaults across private equity portfolios and particularly software companies vulnerable to new AI technologies. Worries about rising credit losses and investor redemptions from private credit funds have pummelled the stocks of listed private capital groups such as Blue Owl, KKR, Blackstone and Ares Management this year. KKR’s FSK fund oversees a $13bn portfolio, mostly of loans made to private-equity-backed midsized companies during a record wave of takeover activity over the past decade. Deal activity hit a peak in 2021 and 2022 at the end of an era of historically low interest rates that quickly reversed the following year, causing an industry-wide crunch.
