NEW YORK, March 11 (Reuters) - KKR's publicly

traded private credit fund has experienced pressure on near-term

returns, but the company sees more opportunity in non-traded

vehicles, Chief Financial Officer Robert Lewin said on

Wednesday.

Private debt funds known as business development companies

(BDCs) have seen their share prices fall on public exchanges and

redemption requests from the non-traded versions rise as

investors worry about credit markets and exposure to the

software sector. KKR FSK Capital Corp's shares are down

29% so far this year.

"The minority of our capital, roughly $17 billion in direct

lending, sits in BDC format," Lewin told the RBC Capital Markets

Global Financial Institutions conference in New York. He said

$14 billion of that sits in FSK, which "has had pressure on

returns of the near term, largely from some subordinated

exposure."

"We don't have much capital in that private BDC space, and

we think there can be a real opportunity for us here," he added.

Rivals Blue Owl and BlackRock ( BLK ) have seen

their shares sold as redemption requests for key funds crossed

the 5% threshold, which conventionally allows an asset manager

to limit redemptions. Some, like Blackstone, have

responded by relaxing the limit to 7% or beyond.

Jitters across private credit came to the fore last year

with the collapse of auto parts supplier First Brands and

subprime lender Tricolor.

They have extended as artificial intelligence threatens to

disrupt the pricing power of software companies, which have

drawn a large share of private funding over the past two

decades.

FSK has over 16% exposure to software and related companies,

company filings show. The software exposure of Global Atlantic -

KKR's insurance business - is roughly 2.5%, Lewin said.

"You're going to have real winners that will benefit from

AI, and you're going to have some businesses that will likely

underperform and that may get disintermediated over time," he

said.

Capital markets also remain fairly robust across the world

despite geopolitical and tariff volatility, Lewin added.

KKR expects first-quarter capital markets revenue to be in

the $200 to $225 million range, largely in line with the

year-ago period.

(Reporting by Isla Binnie in New York, Arasu Kannagi Basil and

Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)