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The definitive source of private markets intelligence.
Outlooks
The private markets recovery is real and narrow
HarbourVest's 2026 Mid-Year Private Markets Outlook puts exit volume near $2 trillion annualized, but three transactions account for more than a third of first-half activity and distribution yields have run at roughly half their historical average for four consecutive years. Liquidity is reaching category leaders and the small end of buyout. The broad middle of the market is still waiting.
Private Credit's Transparency Bill Comes Due
The Financial Stability Board's report on vulnerabilities in private credit, unpacked in EY's latest analysis, marks a shift from watching the market to testing it. Regulators have stopped asking whether private credit should keep growing. They are now asking whether firms can prove how it is valued, funded, and sold. The growth figures are the easy part of the story. The harder part is that a $2.3 trillion asset class has never run through a full credit cycle, and the data n
Private Debt Is the Only Strategy Still Raising Money
PitchBook's Q2 2026 Global Private Market Fundraising Report shows global private capital fundraising heading for a fifth straight annual decline. Managers raised $658.1 billion across 1,499 funds in the first half, and trailing 12 month capital is down 12.7% while fund count is down 37%. The gap between those two figures is the real story. Capital is not leaving the asset class so much as consolidating into fewer, larger vehicles run by established managers. Private debt is
Defaults Are Falling. The BDC Gap Just Hit a Record.
The most important number in Moody's Analytics' mid year US credit risk outlook for 2026 to 2027 is not the falling default rate. It is the gap between public BDCs and the Baa rated corporates they are built to resemble, which widened to the largest on record in the second quarter
Canada Borrows Little Private Credit but Owns a Lot of It
Canada barely borrows private credit, and it owns a great deal of it. Non bank lenders supply about 15% of the external funding of Canadian businesses, a share that has not moved in a decade, while Canadian institutions have quietly built roughly $500 billion of exposure to the asset class abroad.
Sentiment
Direct Lending Does Not Diversify a Private Equity Portfolio
What's New Middle market direct lending moves with private equity, which makes it a weak defensive counterweight in an equity-heavy portfolio. James Li, President and Partner at Davidson Kempner, argues this in a podcast interview on Alt Goes Mainstream. Direct lenders finance the same companies the sponsors own, one level up the capital structure. Distressed and opportunistic credit run the other way, buying when sponsors and lenders are forced to move assets. Allocators sho
Asset Managers Should Enter Private Wealth Only With Firmwide Commitment, Ardian's Mallin Argues
Distributing private markets products to the wealth channel demands a firmwide operational and cultural commitment that most asset managers underestimate, and firms without top-down support should stay out. Ava Mallin, Managing Director of US Private Wealth Solutions at Ardian, argues this in a conversation recorded live at iCapital Connect on Alt Goes Mainstream. Private wealth is complex and expensive, she says, requiring operational overhauls and increased distribution spe
Private Credit Doubled to $2 Trillion on Retail Money. The Managers Who Leaned Hardest Are the Ones That Break.
The private credit shakeout will sort managers by funding source rather than by underwriting quality alone. Kevin McKeon, Head of the US Financial Services Practice at Odgers, makes the argument on Leading Through Uncertainty.
News
Private Credit's Shakeout Will Reward Managers With Diversified Capital
Private credit is in an ordinary cycle that ends in consolidation. Managers with diversified funding will take share from those who cannot raise it. David Golub, Co-CEO at Golub Capital, argues this in a podcast interview on Alt Goes Mainstream. Four years of falling base rates, tighter spreads, and a normal credit cycle have cut returns and widened dispersion. Firms that lose access to capital will shrink, and the survivors get better spreads and terms. Allocators should und
Private Credit's Reckoning Will Land on Insurers, Not Banks
Nick Nemeth of Mispriced Assets argues in a conversation with Jack Farley on Monetary Matters that the standard defense of private credit, that the banks are not holding the paper, is technically true and analytically useless. Roughly a trillion dollars of private credit has migrated onto insurance balance sheets totaling about ten trillion dollars, an asset base he sizes at roughly 150 percent of the Federal Reserve's. The comparison he reaches for is not 2008 but 1929, on t
Carlyle Group Q2 2026 Earnings Results: Record Fee Earnings and a Defense Bet Signal the Next Phase of Schwartz's Rebuild
Carlyle Group's Q2 results tell two stories. The surface narrative is a clean earnings beat, with distributable earnings of $472 million and record fee related earnings comfortably clearing consensus.
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