CION's Gatto: Money rushing into BDCs creates middle-market opportunities

The NAVigator

Mark Gatto, Co-Founder and Co-Chief Executive Officer of CION Investment Group — which manages the business development company CION Investment Corp. — discusses the heavy interest and cash flow into BDCs and how that is changing the space and making it important for investors and advisers to "pull back the layers to understand what they are investing in." Gatto advises paying particular attention to the deals and credit quality a BDC engages in. He also says that the biggest players in BDCs are becoming "very homogeneous" and avoiding differentiation when they get very large. However, Gatto says that situation also creates opportunities for investors who want to diversify their BDC holdings by investing in middle-market deals, where smaller BDCs can be more nimble and offer different exposure.