What's Happening Blackstone delivered its third quarter 2025 earnings amid its 40th anniversary celebration, with management declaring the long awaited "deal dam" is finally breaking as capital markets activity resurges and multiple secular growth engines accelerate simultaneously. The quarter demonstrated the firm's unique positioning at the intersection of cyclical recovery and structural transformation in alternatives, with private wealth, insurance, and institutional chan

Recent bankruptcies like First Brands and Tricolor Food Group are likely "canaries in the coal mine" signaling broader underwriting problems across private credit markets. According to Morningstar's The Long View podcast, private market analyst Leyla Kunimoto argues that a decade of cheap money chasing deals has produced loosened covenants and compromised oversight, with stress now emerging as borrowers struggle under higher rates.

Private credit hits $3.5T but faces first stress test in 16 years as defaults rise and manager selectivity becomes critical.

BlackRock delivered record Q4 2025 results with EPS of $13.16 (beating estimates by 5.79%) and revenue of $7 billion (up 23% YoY), with private markets emerging as the central pillar of its forward strategy. The quarter marks the first full integration of GIP, HPS, and Preqin, positioning BlackRock as a top five alternatives platform with over $675 billion in client assets and a clear runway toward $400 billion in gross private markets fundraising by 2030.

What's New Blue Owl Capital has nearly doubled its assets under management from $160 billion to almost $300 billion since March 2024, with the wealth channel serving as a central driver of this expansion. In a recent Alt Goes Mainstream podcast interview , Sean Connor, President & CEO of Global Private Wealth at Blue Owl, revealed that the firm's evergreen fund flows have grown 2.5x over three years while simultaneously diversifying beyond direct lending into asset-based fina

Private credit tops $1.7T globally, reshaping bank competition while supporting CRE valuations—but recession risks loom.

Secondaries, CRE debt, and infrastructure emerge as top picks as valuations reset and manager selection becomes critical.

What's New With Intelligence's Private Credit Outlook 2026  reveals that the asset class enters 2026 confronting its most challenging environment since the financial crisis, with cracks emerging in corporate credit evidenced by high-profile leveraged loan defaults, rising PIK usage now at 8% of BDC investment income, and a "true" default rate approaching 5% when selective defaults are included—setting the stage for over $100 billion in recently raised distressed and opportun

Private credit eyes LBO rebound as transparency demands intensify and mega-funds consolidate market share.

Preqin's Global Reports 2026 forecasts private markets entering the new year with cautious optimism and resilient long-term growth prospects across all major asset classes. The research firm projects private equity AUM approaching $12 trillion and private credit reaching $4.5 trillion by 2030, while infrastructure is set to nearly triple toward $3 trillion—with Europe leading that growth trajectory despite near-term deployment challenges and elevated interest rates constraini

Private capital hits $22T as investors flee broken stock-bond correlation; Q3 2025 PE deals reach highest since Q4 2021.

Morningstar's 2026 Global Outlook Report identifies private markets as the next frontier in portfolio construction, with semiliquid fund assets reaching nearly $450 billion through June 2025—up 77% since 2022—as new vehicle structures and regulatory support make private equity, credit, and real assets accessible to individual investors and retirement plans for the first time at scale.

Goldman Sachs Asset Management's 2026 Investment Outlook reveals that private equity valuations have reached record highs at the median, while roughly 15% of private credit borrowers can't cover interest payments—signaling that manager selection and disciplined underwriting will separate winners from losers as exit activity accelerates.

In a recent interview on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast, Oaktree co-CEO Armen Panossian outlined the firm's defensive positioning ahead of an expected uptick in private credit defaults, warning that the 2018-2021 vintage of leveraged buyouts represents the market's soft underbelly as weak credits face a "day of reckoning" in 2027—while simultaneously highlighting asset-backed finance as a multi-trillion dollar opportunity created by banking sector retreat.

ING built Europe's largest evergreen alternatives platform by treating private markets as "slow money" requiring human-centric design.

Private credit crossed $2 trillion in AUM in 2025, cementing its status as the dominant force in alternative investments. But the year also brought the asset class's first real stress test since the 2008 financial crisis—exposing cracks that had been papered over during 16 years of benign conditions.

Private markets emerged from a three-year fog in 2025—but into an environment of radical transformation rather than simple recovery. Global buyout dealmaking hit $2 trillion (+14% YoY), the third-most-active year on record. For the first time since 2015, distributions to LPs finally exceeded capital contributions. Yet underneath these headline numbers, the industry confronted existential questions about its business model, investor base, and relationship with regulators.

What's New Morgan Stanley Investment Management's 2026 Private Equity and Private Credit Outlooks signal a decisive inflection point for alternative investments, with M&A activity recovering from a three-decade low relative to GDP and private credit yields expected to remain elevated in the 8.0-8.5% range despite rate cuts. The reports highlight that PE-backed companies leveraging AI adoption are creating a widening performance gap, while scaled private credit platforms are p

Mercer's inaugural "Private Markets in Motion" report reveals overwhelming optimism among private debt managers, with 80% expecting an increase in fund managers raising capital over the next three to five years and 87% anticipating growth in limited partner allocations to the asset class. The survey of 57 global firms managing over $2 trillion in assets finds wealth management clients will drive the fastest-growing inflows, as the democratization of private markets accelerate

What's New John Cortese, Partner and Co-Head of Corporate Credit at Apollo Global Management, argues in the firm's 2026 Credit Outlook that the technical backdrop defining credit markets has fundamentally shifted, as $1.5 trillion in announced hyperscaler capex and reviving M&A activity are flooding markets with new issuance—transforming what was a seller's market into one that rewards disciplined buyers with the broadest opportunity set in a decade. Why It Matters The conv