It's contagion from Tricolor. There was an article about this a few days ago. It kept missing payments, and in light of the credit worries the lenders were considering pushing it into bankruptcy. Looks like they did.

Isn't that possibly like saying that New Century was "just" a real estate investor?

Interesting, I remember a few years back when I bought my car in Australia, there was a car shortage. Which was weird. It was really hard to find certain models of popular brands... One of my motivations for buying a new car at the time was the financing... It was fixed rate for the life of the loan. Which is refreshing in a country like Australia where banks essentially don't do fixed-rate loans for houses (cannot be fixed for more than a couple of years... Not real fixed rate.).

Anyway I wonder if maybe it was a similar situation in other countries. Seems like car finance companies were set up for failure in a rising interest rate environment, consumers felt it and responded by buying cars on debt.

It seems like a similar thing happened a few years earlier with Silicon Valley Bank except theirs was bonds. I guess the lesson is; don't loan money out at a fixed rate while the currency is being debased into oblivion.

The other lesson is that wisdom of the crowds is real. I will never be able to understand how it's possible that pea-brained consumers sometimes seem to have a sixth sense about complex financial macroeconomics. Kind of what happened with Bitcoin as well. Stupid people with incredible gut instinct.

What's difference this time that no one believes private credit is or never has been safe in the first place. It's also often one step further away from banks: banks lend to funds who lend private credit.

Risky things are expected to blow up, especially if there is a bubble.

I fear we live in an age where government will throw any amount of taxpayer money to end any collapse in the markets.

Does someone have a non-paywalled version of that article?

Given that Tricolor and First Brand also went bankrupt recently I'd say yes.