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PDF | Research | Week of Feb 24 2025

Quote of the Week

“The upbeat mood seen among US businesses at the start of the year has evaporated, replaced with a darkening picture of heightened uncertainty, stalling business activity

and rising prices.”

– Chris Williamson, chief business economist, S&P Global Market Intelligence. (FT).

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High Five – 2025 Outlook (Fifth of a Series)

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Private Credit in a Post-Rate World

(First of a Series)

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When you’re successful, everyone wants a piece of you. That’s the challenge private credit faces today. Its grown from a small, largely ignored corner of leveraged loans called the middle market two decades ago to an asset class rivaling both broadly syndicated loans and high-yield bonds. And now private credit is drawing attention from sophisticated global institutional as well as retail investors for being an astonishingly helpful way to produce consistent income streams at attractive risk-weighted premiums. 


The limelight has also brought it criticism for being, among other things, an asset bubble waiting to pop, a hiding place for loans of dubious valuations, worse in defaults and losses than public credit, crowded with too many managers doing the same thing, and conspirators with banks in weakening terms and structures at the upper end of the loan market. 


Our forty-five years of direct lending experience and being on the management team of one of the most successful practitioners in the industry (not to mention our weekly Lead Left publications since March, 2008), has given us a unique perspective to separate fact from fiction for investors and observers...

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Private Capital Call Podcast


Episode 7: Anastasia Amoroso, Managing Director and Chief Investment Strategist at iCapital

"Most of the private market asset classes have delivered higher risk-adjusted returns and lower volatility." - Anastasia Amoroso

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Chart of the Week

Home in the Range

The threat of tariff-triggered inflation should keep Fed Funds rates range-bound. 

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Source: iCapital, Bloomberg, Federal Reserve.

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Bloomberg: Leveraged Lending Insights

Cracks begin to show in primary market amid tight pricing

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  • To Monitor Upcoming US Institutional Loan Issuance, run PREL <GO> from a Bloomberg Terminal


The average all-in spread for 1st lien leveraged loans for the 3-month period ending in January was 313 bps, down 23 bps or 6.9% from the previous period, and marked the tightest spread on record since Bloomberg began tracking the data in 2013...


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Contacts: Vincent Daigger, Lara Wieczezynski / Bloomberg

PDI Picks

To ESG or not to ESG

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LPs appear to be sending contradictory messages on the importance of incorporating ESG and sustainability into investment approaches.

How seriously should fund managers be taking their sustainability and ESG-related responsibilities? Judging by our LP Perspectives 2025 report, it’s hard to answer that question conclusively. 

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Contact: Andy Thomson / Private Debt Investor

Leveraged Loan Insight & Analysis

As par-plus loans begin to drift lower, new repricing candidates prove no easier to find

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Regardless of where one points the blame - a slight downshift in technicals, cracks in broader market conditions, or the self-fulfilling dynamic that the vast majority of issuers that could reprice have already done so - the share of institutional loans trading above par has begun to move noticeably lower.


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Contact: Chris Piccirillo / LSEG

The Pulse of Private Equity

Hypothetical growth of $100 invested by index

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PitchBook and Morningstar recently introduced their Buyout Replication index, which is snapshotted below in part...

Read More & Download Report

Contact: Garrett Black / PitchBook

KBRA Direct Lending Deals: News & Analysis

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TTM Default Volume, Count

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Contact: Eric Rosenthal / KBRA DLD

Middle Market & Private Credit

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Private Credit: Growth to Continue,

But Not Yet a Systemic Risk

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Private credit has expanded rapidly, but sizing the market is challenging given limited transparency. In its ‘Private Debt 2025’ report, Preqin sized the global private credit market at $1.6 trillion in AUM at year-end 2024 and projects that it will increase to $2.7 trillion by 2029.


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Contact: Brad Hamner / FitchRatings

Covenant Trends 

Average Minimum Day-One Capped

Basket Capacity, YoY

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Download Data

Contact: Steven Miller / Covenant Review

High-Yield Bond Statistics

Launched Volume

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New-issue Yields

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Weekly Fund Flows

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Weekly fund flows source: Lipper

Download Data

Contact: Robert Polenberg / LevFin Insights

Debtwire Middle-Market

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The blue line in the chart is the current dividend yield of the *VanEck BDC Income ETF (currently at 10.3% as of 14 February) that tracks the overall performance of publicly traded business development companies (BDCs, are lenders to privately held middle-market businesses that tend to be below investment grade or not rated, with most lending comprising of senior secured loans)...

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Contact: Suneet Chandvani/ Debtwire 

Private Debt Intelligence

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Private exit volumes level out

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Read more in Preqin’s ‘Deal Flow Monitor: Outlook 2025’.



Higher interest rates have hampered the private equity exit environment over the past two years. Aggregate exit value from buyouts in 2024 dropped below $400bn for the first time since 2010, with 2,181 exits yielding $365.4bn...

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Contact: William Bennett-LynchPreqin

February Update: Middle Market Deal Terms at a Glance

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Contact: Stefan Shaffer / SPP Capital Partners

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This publication is a service to our clients and friends. It is designed only to give general information on the market developments actually covered. It is not intended to be a comprehensive summary of recent developments or to suggest parameters for any prospective financing opportunity.