Kroll's valuation team says carrying a fund stake at its last reported NAV, without adjusting for current markets, breaches ASC 820. Its read of the SEC staff statement puts index-driven models and borrower conviction under the same test.

The SEC proposed letting individuals qualify as accredited investors by passing a FINRA exam of about 2 hours, with an expected fee near $100. Status would last 10 years, and private fund distributors would verify holders through a FINRA lookup.

Under a total portfolio approach, private credit must beat a public replica built from high-yield bonds, floating-rate loans and BDCs. Invesco's Kenneth Blay and Benjamin Jones argue the approach raises the bar for every private commitment.

High yield offers an all-in yield near 7.3%, with US defaults below 1% since the pandemic. BNY Investments argues private credit's premium has narrowed once fees, credit losses and liquidity costs are counted.

Several weaker middle market CLOs now hold less than 1% of junior overcollateralization cushion, with defaulted-asset exposure as high as 5%. S&P Global Ratings finds the stable index average hides a cohort that started thin and took the defaults.

37% of family offices plan to add direct private equity while 27% plan to cut private debt. The RBC and Campden Wealth survey of 155 offices finds liquidity concerns steering capital toward direct ownership.

American investors have led 80% of European growth rounds over the last decade. Christian Sinding, investment committee chair of EQT's Scaleup Europe Fund, argues that Europe needs its own growth leads to build trillion-euro companies at home.

SEC staff want private credit funds to show how much reported income is cash and how much is capitalized PIK interest. Third-quarter filings are the first test.

About 15% of new leasing in Blackstone's US logistics business now comes from data center related uses, up from basically 0% three years ago. A.J. Agarwal and David Levine argue that warehouses have become part of the AI infrastructure build.

Default rates in direct lending and broadly syndicated loans have run at 4% to 5% for three years. KKR's Chris Sheldon argues that with no index for the market, returns will split by manager on vintage, sector mix and portfolio construction.

TPG raised $26 billion in the first half across 35 products and targets a fee-related earnings margin in the 50s. CFO Axel André and Jack Weingart argue that diversification, insurance partnerships and lower middle market lending at about 4x leverage will drive the step-up.

Brookfield targets $1.3 trillion of fee-bearing capital by 2031. CEO Connor Teskey argues that larger successor funds replacing smaller ones would deliver a decade of growth even if fund sizes stalled.

Blue Owl earns more leasing data centers to AA-rated hyperscalers than it does on BBB tenants, with cap rates above 8%. Doug Ostrover underwrites every deal to a 7% to 10% return even if the buildings are worth nothing when the 20-year lease ends.

Blackstone's accrued performance revenue in its institutional infrastructure strategy passed $900 million ahead of a scheduled crystallization in the fourth quarter of 2027. CFO Michael Chae argues AI deployment in data centers, power and frontier AI stakes is about to show up as realized performance fees.

Ares CEO Mike Arougheti ranks AI financing by risk-adjusted return: data center shells first, adjacent infrastructure second, GPUs last. Chips are the largest slice of a $5 trillion build-out, and he says no one can yet describe their depreciation curve.

Apollo's Scott Kleinman argues private assets must adopt daily pricing, market making and ICE identifiers to win fixed income, mutual fund and 401(k) money. He puts fixed income replacement in the first inning and ties it to the total portfolio approach.

Spend on Anthropic across Blackstone's portfolio reached $525 million annualized. Jon Gray argues the payoff from AI capex now shows up in company-level returns and margins, while physical supply limits how fast it scales.

Private credit will reach its largest new pools of capital only when it trades, prices, and settles like a public security. Marc Rowan, Chairman and CEO at Apollo Global Management, argues this in a fireside chat at Bank of America's 31st Annual Financials CEO Conference. He names five new buyers: individuals, insurers, institutional debt and equity buckets, traditional asset managers, and retirement plans. He says none of them are natural fund investors.

Software makes up 23% of direct lending, against 13% of the broadly syndicated loan market. Marathon's Bruce Richards argues that concentration, at around 8 times leverage and with enterprise values halved, sets up the next credit cycle.

US direct lending funds returned 2.6% on average for the latest full year, below the 4.3% return on broadly syndicated loans. PitchBook's H1 2026 Global Private Debt Report points to spread compression in crowded strategies. Megafunds took 78.7% of US direct lending capital, while Europe's less concentrated market kept its premium over liquid loans.