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Private placement BDCs paid $1.2 billion in redemptions in the first quarter of 2026, meeting 74% of investor requests, according to a new report from Robert A. Stanger & Company.
Stanger looked at tender offer results reported by 19 private placement BDCs, including seven of the sector’s 15 largest funds by aggregate NAV. These BDCs, which hold $27.5 billion in aggregate NAV, paid $1.2 billion to investors in the first quarter, while declining to fulfill $431 million in redemption requests. The most current data shows that 15 of the funds met 100% of their redemption requests, including Goldman Sachs Private Credit Corp. (with NAV of $8.6 billion), Carlyle Credit Solutions Inc. (with NAV of $1.76 billion), and Monroe Capital Income Plus Corp. (with NAV of $2.83 billion), among others. Five of the funds prorated their redemption requests.
Private placement BDCs have grappled with skyrocketing redemption requests since late last year, as investors worried about potential issues with the BDCs’ loan portfolios, and rushed to withdraw their money from the funds. In the fourth quarter of 2025, demand for redemptions in the sector reached a historic high of 4.6%, 400 basis points above the long-term average of 1.6%. A detailed analysis of the loans in these funds by the London-based research firm Preqin found that their quality matched that of the broader credit market.
“There do not appear to be any liquidity issues as of today,” said Michael S. Covello, executive managing director with Robert A. Stanger & Co. “They did what we expected them to do, which is meet the [redemption] caps they originally designed. What they need to be conscious of are the remaining investors, not just those looking to exit the vehicles.”
The BDCs hold a certain amount of liquid investments to help them in situations such as the current one, when investor redemption requests start to tick up, Covello noted. Most also have the flexibility to pay an additional 2% of NAV in redemptions, on top of their typical 5% caps. But if that money runs short, they may be forced to sell loans at a discount or take on additional leverage, which would negatively impact their remaining investors, who they have a duty to protect, he added.
The results reported so far by private placement BDCs appear in line with what’s been happening in the publicly registered NAV BDC space.
After reviewing early first-quarter results, Stanger reported that publicly traded BDCs returned $7.4 billion to investors, or 53% of overall redemption requests, with $6.5 billion in requested redemptions still unfulfilled.
“We are not surprised that 5% is the amount most of these firms are coming out with, and what we are happy to see is the magnitude of redemptions that are being met,” Covello said. “That’s a record amount from a dollar standpoint of liquidity provided by BDCs in our space.”
Four of the funds—Blue Owl Credit Income Corp., Blue Owl Technology Income Corp., Ares Strategic Income Fund and Apollo Debt Solutions BDC—met less than 50% of redemption requests.
The first quarter of 2026 marked the first time NAV BDCs had to prorate redemptions, according to Stanger.
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