From View From The Top, 11 February 2026
Nothing Breaks — Until It Does
This week’s newsletter comes from the top of a mountain where the air is crisp and fresh and the view is breathtaking. I find when you ski and are in the mountains, the world seems like a good place.
But below, there’s a strange tension in markets right now. Back to London and I feel it.
There has been no crash. No single event. No dramatic reset. Just a constant grind.
And yet — and almost everywhere you look — things feel harder. It feels like a treadmill and no one getting anywhere fast these days.
Refinancing is slower. Capital is more conditional. Returns are being quietly re-written and lending criteria are actually falling in a lot of shops to get deals done.
This cycle isn’t announcing itself with headlines. It’s grinding its way through balance sheets, capital stacks, and operating models.
What we’re living through a slow squeeze.
1. The uncomfortable phase markets don’t like to talk about
Most people are still waiting for “the moment” to come though:
- a default wave
- the forced selling
- the trigger that finally flushes the system
- a default wave
- the forced selling
- the trigger that finally flushes the system
But this cycle doesn’t look like that. And it won’t happen.
Loans aren’t blowing up overnight. They’re becoming harder to refinance, harder to extend, harder to exit. Harder to manage through. Many sponsors who were the darlings of SME are gone, or severely bruised.
Margins are narrowing quietly. Equity is being diluted rather than wiped out. Fees are going up while leverage comes down.
Nothing looks dramatic — until you zoom out; like from a mountain top.
This is what prolonged financial pressure actually looks like. Not chaos. But Fatigue.
And fatigue is dangerous because it exposes everything that was masked by easy capital. And those days are gone.
2. Credit fatigue and the myth of “risk-adjusted returns”
One of the clearest stress points right now is in private credit. Everyone wanted to be in the game. Equity firms shifted. Investment bankers left jobs and created their own private shops. Competition increased.
And for years underwriting was treated as the hard part. Spreads were modelled perfectly. Downside cases were stress-tested. “Risk-adjusted returns” were promised. But…..
What got underweighted? The reality of the workout world when things slow down and values drop.
Because when exits stretch, refinancing dries up, and borrowers start juggling priorities, the skill set changes completely.
This new phase now requires:
- Real hands on asset management
- Operational depth of expereince
- Credit, equity, and operating experience in the same room
- Real hands on asset management
- Operational depth of expereince
- Credit, equity, and operating experience in the same room
And I think we all learned the hard way; a spreadsheet doesn’t manage assets through delayed exits. Throwing more money at a problem doesn’t solve the problem. A fund structure doesn’t solve political friction. And underwriting alone doesn’t create resilience.
The market is discovering — again — that lending without operational capability turns lenders into accidental operators.
Some will adapt. Others will quietly retreat.
3. Ticket-size paralysis: capital and opportunity missing each other
Another pressure point that’s resurfacing is equity ticket size.
Developers and operators are pitching into a void.
- Too big for most family offices
- Too small for institutions
- Too complex for passive capital
- Too big for most family offices
- Too small for institutions
- Too complex for passive capital
Family offices are overwhelmed, cautious, and writing fewer cheques. Institutions are focused on scale, certainty, and platforms — not one-off assets. And operators are stuck in the middle, trying to bridge the gap.
The result isn’t a lack of capital. It’s a misalignment of format.
Capital today wants:
- Aggregation
- Repeatability
- Alignment
- Visibility through cycles
- Aggregation
- Repeatability
- Alignment
- Visibility through cycles
This is why we’re seeing renewed interest in:
- Platform strategies
- Joint ventures
- Structured equity
- Stock-for-stock rollups
- Platform strategies
- Joint ventures
- Structured equity
- Stock-for-stock rollups
Not because they’re fashionable — but because they’re functional. And frankly I predict that the pendulum will swing back to equity from credit.
4. The squeezed middle is where pressure is actually building
Policy debates often focus on extremes:
- social housing at one end
- luxury markets at the other
- social housing at one end
- luxury markets at the other
But the real strain is in the middle.
Households earning “too much” for support but not enough for ownership. Developers caught between rising costs and affordability ceilings. Cities struggling to deliver supply without breaking economics. In the UK, this is now structural. In Southern Europe, it’s arriving more slowly — but capital is positioning early.
The difference isn’t demand. It’s timing, cost base, and political friction.
This is why comparative capital is moving — not chasing yield, but durability.
5. Capital hasn’t disappeared. It’s repositioning.
One misconception I hear often: “Capital is on the sidelines.” It’s not.
It’s just become far more selective about:
- jurisdiction
- structure
- partners
- downside protection
- Velocity
- jurisdiction
- structure
- partners
- downside protection
- Velocity
We’re seeing a clear shift toward:
- safety paired with lifestyle
- long-term capital over short-term optimisation
- operators with proven scars, not just track records
- safety paired with lifestyle
- long-term capital over short-term optimisation
- operators with proven scars, not just track records
This isn’t panic capital. It’s generational capital quietly re-allocating.
Less about making more. More about losing less — intelligently.
Hard Landing
Transitions are hardest when the old playbook still almost works.
When capital is still available — but only if you change. When exits are possible — but slower. When doing things the old way feels comfortable, even as it becomes less effective.
That’s where many founders, operators, and investors find themselves right now.
Not broken. Not failing. Just standing at the edge of a necessary shift.
And those moments — when nothing forces you to change yet — are often the most dangerous of all.
