Thanks for being here for the first edition!
Private markets have stayed closed off for way too long. A few years ago, I didn’t even know this world existed, let alone how to access it.
Capital Arbitrage is my attempt to change that.
Every week, I’ll share what I’m seeing across real estate, alternative investments, private credit, and institutional capital.
My goal is to offer simple, digestible intelligence for people who want a window into a world that's usually hard to get into.
I want this to stay short and valuable every single week. So if you've got thoughts on how to make it better, I’d genuinely like to hear them.
Let’s get into it.
Abu Dhabi just committed $60B to AI infrastructure as it pivots away from oil dependence. This week, I broke down where that capital is actually flowing. It's not just data centres; it's the entire power and infrastructure stack underneath them.
Two weeks ago, Chinese banks crossed a quiet but significant threshold - their largest borrower relationship is now effectively the United States, a sign of how deeply intertwined global credit markets have become even as geopolitical rhetoric suggests otherwise.
And the story that's been building for months: the $3 trillion private credit market is starting to show cracks. BlackRock has already taken a loss on a private loan - small in isolation, but a signal worth watching if you're underwriting anything credit-adjacent right now.
What's crossing my desk and my conversations this week:
Data centre debt is the hottest category I'm seeing right now, with multiple lenders actively deploying and multiple sponsors racing to secure power and land. But underwriting remains fractured: every lender wants something different before they'll move to financing, which makes packaging these deals harder than the demand suggests.
A US lender is sitting on $500M, ready to deploy into anything from real estate to mining to biotech to distressed recapitalisations. Their only real filter is whether they can find credit that everyone else has missed - the messier the deal, the more interested they get. In January, they led a $162M term loan into a cannabis company as part of a $306M recap.
A €3.5B European private credit firm is writing €25M–€75M cheques into complex, asset-backed situations across Western and Central Europe. What's interesting is what they don't want: clean, stabilised deals. They specifically chase stressed situations and dislocated structures that most lenders walk away from. Their latest €900M fund has already committed €330M across 7 investments.
M&A appetite is strong in unglamorous sectors such as pest control, tree services, and trade businesses, as institutional buyers are paying multiples founders don't expect. Pest control platforms with recurring revenue have sold for 12-18x EBITDA once they hit institutional scale.
Family offices continue to prioritise trust and operator quality over IRR projections in initial conversations. What I am seeing is that the numbers come second to downside protection, risk reversal and exit strategies.
Because data centres are dominating every conversation I'm having right now, I'm building a curated shortlist of the private credit firms actively funding them: who they are, what they need to see, and how to get in front of them. More on that soon.
If you're raising capital, here's what separates sponsors who close from sponsors who get ghosted:
Track record. Institutional capital wants to see that you've executed this exact type of deal before. They don’t care about adjacent experience; they want to see that you have run the same deal in the past.
Skin in the game. If you're not putting your own capital into the deal, don't expect someone else's $20M+ to show up either. Nobody is going to fund 100% of your deal (unless you have a shovel-ready residential project in a US red state…more on that later) so make sure you own the land, or can put 20-30% into the deal.
Execution proof. Land should be secured, permits should be in motion, anchor tenant should be signed. Family offices and institutional investors want verifiable milestones, not a 3-year story. There are exceptions to the rule, but 90% of the time you’ll need your house in order to proceed.
My own addition to this list after hundreds of conversations: communication. Institutions will ask for documentation, structure changes, and clarifications repeatedly before they entertain a real conversation. The sponsors who close are the ones who respond fast and do whatever it takes to make the diligence process easy. The ones who go quiet lose the deal every time.
A snapshot of what's currently moving through Capital Arbitrage:
Deal | Asset Type | Geography | Structure | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|
EU Workforce Housing | Brownfield | Netherlands | Debt/Equity | 400M |
UK Data Centre | Brownfield | UK | Debt | 65M |
Miami Luxury Residential | Greenfield | USA | Equity | 40M |
Biomass | Greenfield | USA | Debt/Equity | 865M |
Landbanking | Landbanking | Hong Kong | Debt/Equity | 40M |
This isn't the full pipeline - just a flavour of what's active. If you're an investor or lender active in any of these asset classes or geographies, reply to this email.
That's all for this week. See you next Friday.
— Jordon
P.S. I get 400,000+ monthly impressions on LinkedIn and a growing list of private capital readers right here. If you'd like to get your company, fund, or raise in front of this audience, just reply to this email.