Lower the swings. Not the returns
A sleeve of senior-secured private credit — uncorrelated with public markets and far less volatile than equities — can cut a portfolio’s swings and drawdowns without lowering its expected return. In 2022, when stocks and bonds fell together, private credit held positive. Model it on your own portfolio below.
What a private credit sleeve does to your equity curve
Set your portfolio size and the mix closest to yours, then drag in a Kilde sleeve. The same market path runs through both portfolios — watch the gold line ride smoother as the sleeve grows. Flip to a volatile decade to see it under stress.
The 2022 stress test
When stocks and bonds fell together, what would your year have looked like?
All values shown in today's purchasing power. Kilde modelled at the trailing 12-month net return of 12.39%, already net of the 0.5% p.a. platform fee (track record, not a guarantee). Cash at the standard SGD savings rate of 0.05%; FDs & SSBs blended at 2.8% (12-mo SGD FD ≈ 3.0%, 10-yr SSB avg ≈ 2.7%). High-yield savings accounts with bonus conditions (e.g. DBS Multiplier, UOB One) can pay more on capped balances — see your bank's published tier table. Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. Capital at risk.
The share of investor capital permanently lost after recoveries. 0% means no principal losses.
Total amount investors have committed to private credit opportunities on Kilde since launch.
The 60/40 promise broke in 2022
The whole point of holding bonds was that when equities fell, bonds would rise and cushion the blow. In 2022, they fell together — the worst year for a balanced portfolio in a generation. The lesson wasn't "hold more assets." It was "hold assets that don't move together."
A balanced equity/bond portfolio's 2022 return — its worst calendar year since the 2008 crisis, because both legs fell at once.
In 2022 the stock-bond correlation flipped firmly positive, from its long-run negative. The hedge became a second source of loss.
The intra-year drawdown on global equities in 2022. Recovering a 25% drawdown requires a 33% gain — and a strong stomach.
The Cliffwater Direct Lending Index returned positive in 2022 while public markets fell — the kind of low-correlation behaviour that actually diversifies.
Adding a fifth equity fund to four others doesn't reduce risk — they all sell off together in a crisis. Real diversification comes from low correlation: an asset whose returns are driven by something other than the same market sentiment that moves your stocks.
Senior-secured private credit is driven by contractual loan coupons from borrowers in the real economy, not by where equity multiples trade this quarter. That's why its correlation to public equities is low — and why a modest sleeve can meaningfully calm an entire portfolio's swings.
Volatility isn't just uncomfortable — it's a tax on compounding. Two portfolios with the same average return but different volatility do not end up in the same place; the more volatile one ends up poorer, because losses compound against a smaller base.
The investor who doesn't panic-sell at the bottom keeps more than the one who does. A smoother ride is how you stay invested
We do only one thing, and we do it well
Most platforms offer you the world. Stocks. Bonds. ETFs. REITs. Crypto. Maybe a little hype.
At Kilde, we specialise in secured private credit and that’s all we do. We don't promise anything else, we don't sell anything else, and we don't pretend to know anything else. The best investments don't need hype. Just results.
Doing one thing for five years, with one credit team, inside one regulated entity, is how the track record came to be what it is.
Different Objective
Built for investors optimising
for the ride, not just the destination
Kilde isn't a way to chase the highest possible return. It's a way to earn a strong contractual yield from an asset that barely moves with public markets — so the whole portfolio rides more smoothly.
How much smoothing a sleeve actually buys
Illustrative effect on a Balanced 60/40 base portfolio, typical-decade simulation. As the low-correlation sleeve grows, volatility and drawdown fall while expected return edges up — the signature of a true diversifier.
Three steps to a calmer portfolio
Kilde is a curated platform of carefully selected private credit deals. Our credit team sources, vets, and structures every opportunity. You choose which ones to fund and how much to allocate to your sleeve.
If It Sounds Too Good To Be True
Why is the volatility so low, and where is the catch?
A sophisticated investor should immediately ask: is this low volatility real, or just unobserved? It's the right question. Here's the honest, unvarnished answer.
The short version
The diversification benefit is real because the return driver — contractual coupons from real-economy borrowers — is genuinely different from what moves public equities. That low correlation is what smooths your portfolio.
But "low volatility" on a private asset is partly a reporting artefact. The honest framing is: lower observed volatility, genuinely low correlation, real credit risk that's senior-secured and has produced 0.0% losses since 2021 — not a risk-free return.
If anyone sells you smoothness with no underlying risk, walk away. We won't.
How much of the low volatility is real
A genuine portion is real: the returns are contractual loan coupons, the loans are senior-secured and short-duration, and they're driven by the real economy, not equity sentiment. That structurally dampens volatility and keeps correlation to public markets low.
Real, structural, and measurable.
And how much is just "not marked daily"
Part of it is that private assets aren't repriced every day like a listed bond. Some of the apparent smoothness is the absence of a daily quote, not the absence of risk. We won't pretend otherwise — if these loans were marked to market every minute, you'd see more wobble.
We say this out loud. Most won't.
The risks that actually matter
Three things can go wrong: (1) a borrowing lender's loan portfolio deteriorates faster than its capital absorbs; (2) macro events (FX, regulation) hit a country we lend into; (3) you can't access capital exactly when you want it because the term hasn't matured.
These are real. They are not eliminated.
How Kilde structures around them
Every investment is senior-secured against ~1.6× collateral in diversified loan receivables, with conservative advance rates, covenants, and quarterly monitoring. You sit ahead of every other creditor. Since launch in 2021, after recoveries, principal losses to investors are 0.0%.
Track record, not promise.
The Mechanism, In One Table
Low correlation is the whole point
Diversification is a function of correlation, not the number of holdings. The lower an asset's correlation to the rest of your portfolio, the more it smooths the whole. Here's how the three building blocks relate.
Indicative Correlation Matrix
Darker cells mean assets move together; lighter cells mean they move independently. Kilde's row and column are the lightest on the grid — that's the property that smooths your equity curve.
Why a low-correlation sleeve punches above its weight?
When two assets are uncorrelated, the volatility of the combination is lower than the weighted average of their individual volatilities — that's the mathematical free lunch of diversification, and it only works when correlation is genuinely low.
Equities and bonds have correlated more closely in the recent rate regime, which is precisely why 60/40 stopped cushioning. A sleeve whose returns come from loan coupons — not market multiples — restores the third, independent leg the portfolio lost.
That's why even a 10–20% sleeve can move the needle on whole-portfolio volatility and drawdown: it's not about the size of the sleeve, it's about how little it moves with everything else.
How private credit compares to other diversifiers
Most "diversifiers" either correlate to equities when it matters most, carry equity-like volatility themselves, or pay you nothing to hold them. The combination that actually smooths a portfolio is low correlation and low volatility and a real yield. Figures are typical/representative; individual instruments vary.
I'd been a textbook 70/30 investor for fifteen years. 2022 was the first time I genuinely considered selling at the bottom — both sides of the portfolio were red. I moved 18% into a Kilde sleeve afterwards. The next correction, the coupons kept landing and my drawdown was visibly shallower. I didn't touch the sell button. That alone was worth it.
Honest answers
Partly, and we say so plainly. Some of the reported smoothness is the absence of a daily quote rather than the absence of risk — if these loans were marked every minute, you'd see more wobble. But a meaningful portion is genuinely structural: the returns are contractual coupons from senior-secured, short-duration loans driven by the real economy, not equity multiples. The diversification benefit rests on the low correlation, which is real, more than on the low reported volatility, which is partly an artefact. We'd rather you understand the distinction than oversell it.
Usually the opposite. Because Kilde's trailing net return (12.39%) sits above a typical 60/40's expected return, funding a sleeve from your equities and bonds tends to raise expected return and lower volatility at the same time — the rare case where a risk reducer also lifts return. That's unusual; most "risk reducers" cost you return. This one historically hasn't, though past performance is no guarantee.
Representative correlation of senior-secured private credit / direct lending to public equities is low — we model ~0.15. It is not zero, and it can rise in a severe, broad credit event where everything sells off. We don't claim it's a perfect hedge. We claim it's a genuinely low-correlation income asset, which is a different and more honest thing.
A listed high-yield ETF is marked daily, trades with risk sentiment, and correlated sharply with equities in 2022. Kilde's deals are private, senior-secured against ~1.6× collateral, short-duration, and held to term. The return comes from the loan coupon, not from price movement — which is exactly why it behaves differently in a drawdown.
Most investors land between 10% and 25% of the total portfolio. Below 10% the smoothing effect is modest; above ~30% you're concentrating in a single alternative and giving up liquidity you may want. The simulator lets you see the trade-off at each size, and our advisors can help you size it against the rest of your holdings. We say the same thing on every page: diversify around us, don't replace your portfolio with us.
A flat 0.5% per year platform fee on the invested amount. No performance fee, no entry fee, no exit fee, no hidden product spread. The 12.39% trailing 12-month return shown across the site is already net of this fee.
Every investment is senior-secured with collateral worth approximately 1.6× the loan, typically diversified consumer or SME loan receivables. You sit first in line for repayment, ahead of every other creditor. Since launch in 2021, after recoveries, Kilde has had 0.0% principal losses to investors. That is a track record, not a guarantee — capital remains at risk.
Kilde holds a Capital Markets Services licence (CMS 101016) issued by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and is an exempted financial adviser. Client funds are held in segregated trust accounts at DBS Bank — not on Kilde's own balance sheet. Were Kilde itself to fail, your assets would not be part of our estate.
Build the calmer portfolio.
Have a 30-minute conversation
No registration walls, no robo-flow. Speak to a member of our private wealth team about sizing a low-correlation sleeve against your existing holdings. Or open an account directly if you'd prefer.