Direct Lending: archive
Every Direct Lending story in Private Credit, newest first. 141 stories
2 stories
AI is thinning the analyst bench direct lending cannot spare
Creditflux's recruitment slowdown is a bet that software replaces the apprenticeship which produces workout lenders.
Britain's state bank is lending where private credit's economics stop
The second regional fund in a month puts £140m behind £25,000-to-£2m loans, a bracket no unitranche fund can originate at cost.
3 stories
KKR's $350m equipment platform is an origination bet
The asset-based finance strategy has $91bn and no shortage of capital; what the $350m Akrapoint launch buys is a desk that finds mid-ticket collateral.
Peakline buys Kalon to own equipment finance origination
The platform acquisition is the fast route into collateral-based credit, and the announcement withholds price, book size and funding structure — the three inputs that would show whether Peakline paid for originators or a static lease book.
BrightSpire's fifth CRE CLO makes the shelf the funding model
A $960m print with $99m left to spend and a reinvestment window running into 2029 turns a once-opportunistic trade into the REIT's rated cost of capital for multifamily loans.
2 stories
Sixth Street trades structuring capacity for Lloyds' UK loan pipeline
In a European market running 30 per cent behind last year, a bank's borrower relationships are worth more than another fund.
MSP hires a Midlands pipeline for its £350m line
A £10m ticket cap and a £350m funding line leave MSP Capital with one real constraint: finding enough loans, which is what a named Midlands hire is for.
4 stories
Europe's CLO funding is priced at 124bp; the loan spread is next
Four managers cleared Euro CLOs at the benchmark level after the August break, fixing the funding side of the arbitrage and leaving the pipeline to test what the money will buy.
CIFC rents a wealth shelf and leads with covenants
The $47bn manager is putting a covenant-heavy, floating-rate book on a menu where advisers compare yield first.
Monroe's $60m backs the origination machine, not a single lease
A modest cheque from Monroe's equipment finance team reads as the entry price on every lease 36th Street writes next.
Anthropic's capital markets hire is the real Big Sky story
The follow-on to June's $35bn financing matters less than the borrower building the desk that will run it.
3 stories
Direct lending's rising stars are a bench report on a reset
Private Debt Investor named 40 professionals under 40 on Nov. 1; the useful question is whether that bench was built for the market that just closed or the one now arriving.
Stockdale builds a real estate credit arm around a $15m–$75m loan band
A $300m first-year target and a Fortress hire push an owner-lender into the loan sizes the big credit funds leave alone.
Bank of Italy clears Savills IM to lend in Italy
The authorisation gives an Italian real estate manager its own AIF vehicle for direct lending, separate from its European debt strategy and pointed at grade A Milan and Rome.
2 stories
Brightshore's $250m credit anchor is a warehouse
GTIS's rename matters less than the lending platform underneath it, which lands in high-yield property debt just as the corporate direct lending lane contracts.
Europe's direct lending record rests on a hedge
Hayfin's €15bn fifth fund and the year's other European closes are being bought as diversification from America, and a hedge reprices when the fear behind it does.
9 stories
Black Diamond's $83m cheque makes equity the price of a reset
The reset wave has reached 2019 vintages, and the managers who cannot write the cheque will be selling collateral instead.
Serone's US CLO build starts with two hires, no warehouse
Two New York hires are the inexpensive half of a US CLO platform; loan access and an equity bid are the halves that cannot be hired.
Pemberton's Europe thesis is a bet on M&A volume
The pipeline counts will bear him out; the covenant packages on the next European unitranche vintage will show what lenders actually paid for the growth.
Barings creates a CLO capital-formation seat as a bet on the funding side
Ankit Aggarwal placed CLO equity for BofA; at Barings he now owns issuance and capital partnerships across a $55bn platform, a bet that the funding side, not the asset side, is where CLO franchises are won next.
Silver Point's new seat says funding, not origination, is the next edge
A newly created leverage-solutions role is a cheaper, more reversible bet on private credit's funding squeeze than any vehicle filing would be.
Two euro CLO prints, and the constraint is collateral
Royal London's third deal and PGIM's Dryden 134 say more about repeat-issuer intent than pricing appetite, and the pipeline is the thing to watch.
Europe's direct lending mix turns to services as the market shrinks
A 26 per cent share for professional and business services, ahead of technology's 20 per cent, arrived in a year when European private credit volume is running 30 per cent behind 2025.
Ares adds an arranger to Asia direct lending
James Garforth's résumé points to sponsor M&A as the growth engine, and the next hire will show if Ares plans to hold the loans.
Qupital's $300m builds a receivables book the ABS market can price
The round splits equity from paper in a way sponsor finance never does, and MUFG is again buying exposure rather than building it.
2 stories
Jefferies' six-month first close turns secondaries into a launch channel
The bank's in-house advisory desk ran a dual secondaries and primary raise, and if rivals copy it, the secondaries market moves upstream of the fundraise itself.
EIG's $2.1bn separate-account sleeve out-raises its $1.9bn infra fund
Infrastructure debt's center of gravity has shifted to bespoke mandates, leaving the fund that gives EIG's platform its name as the smaller half of the raise.
5 stories
The pricing test begins with a EUR60bn pipeline, two-thirds of it M&A
The deal supply helps unitranche volume and hurts spread; the second effect is the one that sticks.
Downing's £500m line is a third of its lifetime lending
Against £1.5bn of private credit committed since 2010, a £500m facility says more about what Downing could fund than what it could find. The pricing depends on a structure the firm has not described.
Jefferies' first close makes secondaries desks the anchor channel
The split in LP liquidity — capped retail redemptions, priced institutional exits — now decides where the biggest private credit tickets get placed.
ICG buys structuring talent for infrastructure debt
Two hires from Schroders and Antin point a $126bn platform at the tranches European infrastructure borrowers don't price on a screen.
PGIM's $1.5bn football book shows the trophy premium is gone
A decade of private credit money has settled European football into a mid-single-digit trade where relegation, not scarcity, sets the price.
4 stories
Private credit closes 45% of French deals
A six-point gain turns direct lenders from a niche option into the pricing reference in France.
Nuveen Private Capital hires Barings' Rdzak for consultant relations
Rdzak's mandate links NPC's $99bn platform to the consultants who now control institutional access as private credit fundraising concentrates.
Audax-Churchill tie shows a market moving to bigger loans
Flat first-half volume masks a market doing fewer, larger loans, with Audax and Churchill tied at No. 1.
Golub resets 2020-vintage CLO again in $496M rework
The R2 suffix shows the same collateral is back in front of CLO investors, making repetition the latest sign of where private credit funding lives.
3 stories
Kilde's Creditstar hybrid blurs debt-equity lines
The Singapore platform's €4.6m convertible at a €130m pre-money valuation gives a lender an option on consumer credit's upside.
Pluto's flagship fund crosses £500m and targets Europe
As Lending Vehicle VIII expands beyond the UK, Pluto is betting on the 65% of borrowers who come back.
Bridgepoint's €1.2bn CV gives a 2017 fund a new clock
The Pantheon-led transfer shows secondaries capital absorbing seasoned direct loans, turning fund maturity from a selling deadline into a choice.
1 story
European direct lending is now the M&A market
Debtwire data puts direct lenders at the center of European leveraged buyouts, making their underwriting discipline the swing factor for the region's M&A credit cycle.