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Barbarians at the Pearly Gates

Once upon a time, the LBO business was the most innovative and disruptive—and, honestly, sexy—part of Wall Street, planting the seed for the ~$6 trillion private equity market. But now that P.E. is pivoting to private credit, a new set of tools are being unleashed, and a new generation of winners and losers will be minted.

marc rowan
The industry seems to have pivoted significantly to focus on private credit: Apollo Global Management has become the world leader in private credit in recent years. Photo: Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
October 16, 2024

The big Wall Street banks are in the process of reporting astounding third-quarter earnings, led as usual by Jamie Dimon’s JPMorgan Chase with net income of nearly $13 billion—which puts it on track, arithmetically anyway, to earn some $52 billion in profit this year. There’s even talk of Jamie’s bank becoming the first financial institution in the world with a market value of $1 trillion. (It’s still got a ways to go, at $630 billion, but the stock is up 29 percent so far this year and still climbing.)