Does this sound familiar? It is of course the problem with selling obscure funds to those who consider the “wealth adviser” is acting for themselves not for the financial institutions they work for.

As yet the likes of Apollo and  Blackstone aren’t household names in the UK (as they are in the USA) but if they get caught out for mis-selling private market funds, be pretty sure we will know it. It only needs one of these names to do what happened to Lehman and the  covenant behind the insurers we recognise, will put the likes of PIC and Just in jeopardy.

Here is the email I get from FT every morning, this morning it’s like winding back the calendar nearly 20 years to when American banks and finance houses were last making news over here.

Wealth advisers at banks and independent brokerages generated billions of dollars in fees by steering individual investors into private market funds, which many retail investors are now trying to flee, write Antoine Gara, Amelia Pollard, Eric Platt and Harriet Clarfelt.

Sixteen funds, including those managed by Blackstone, Blue Owl, Apollo and KKR, have produced more than $2bn in servicing fees for wealth advisers since 2017 even before lucrative upfront commissions, according to an FT analysis of regulatory filings.

The data show how big banks such as Morgan Stanley, UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch and other independent wealth managers benefited from the boom in private funds targeting individual investors before it started to sour last year.

Semi-liquid or “evergreen” vehicles, which allow investors to deposit and withdraw money at set intervals, soared in popularity over the past five years as a long bull run helped expand the ranks of wealthy individuals seeking to diversify their assets.

They also proliferated as a source of predictable and lucrative fees for both private capital firms and wealth advisers.

Some of those funds have turned to net outflows in recent months amid concerns about asset valuations and underwriting standards, with investors seeking to withdraw more than €20bn from private credit vehicles in the first quarter of the year.

As scrutiny of private credit has intensified, some on Wall Street have pointed blame at incentive structures that herded rich investors towards these products as contributing to the asset class’s rapid growth.

Banks told the FT that their wealth advisers are bound by a fiduciary interest to steer clients to appropriate investments, and were not incentivised by fees. Morgan Stanley said it was often able to “negotiate aggressively” on behalf of clients, leading to lower total fees.

“Of course they’re incentivised by these fees” said Bob Elliott, the founder of Unlimited Funds, referring to advisers at big brokerages, also known as wirehouses.

“Any person who has a wirehouse adviser knows that they’re constantly being pushed products that are financially [beneficial] for either the adviser or the wirehouse, or both.”

I am not so worried by the impact on our wealth industry which is less likely to move to “wirehouse” tactics. But Morningstar offers Pitchbook to sophisticated investors and advisors in this country.

I think a more dangerous consequence of the failure of funds such as Blue Owl will have consequences for private equity firms who own our insurance companies that own the money that was in our pension funds.

Private equity is the security that pensioners have where they once had gilts. Private credit is controlled by the organisations that have bought out our pensions. Private credit is in trouble not just for being mis-sold but because many of its evergreen funds are locking investors in  – the  wealthy in the UK remember the Woodford feeling.