Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey issued stark warnings Tuesday that recent bankruptcies of US firms First Brands and Tricolor could represent "canaries in the coal mine," signaling broader systemic risks lurking within the rapidly expanding private credit market that now exceeds $3 trillion globally. Speaking to the House of Lords Financial Services Regulation Committee, Bailey questioned whether the collapses were isolated incidents or harbingers of more fundamental problems in private finance. "Are these cases idiosyncratic or are they what are called 'the canary in the coal mine'? In other words are they telling us something more fundamental... I think that is still a very open question," Bailey told lawmaker
Bailey drew explicit comparisons to the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, noting alarm bells over the return of "slicing and dicing and tranching of loan structures" in private markets. "If you were involved before the financial crisis then alarm bells start going off at that point," he warned. The concerns sent shockwaves through financial markets, with the FTSE 100 suffering its worst day since April as banking stocks plummeted. Barclays fell as much as 6.75%, while Lloyds, HSBC, and Standard Chartered all dropped at least 2.5%. Deputy Governor Sarah Breeden announced the Bank of England will conduct comprehensive stress tests of the private credit sector within nine to 12 months, involving banks, insurers, private equity firms, and pension funds. "We can see the vulnerabilities here, the opacity, the leverage, the weak underwriting standards, the interconnections," Breeden said. "We can see parallels with the global financial crisis"