The Unit Economics of Deal Origination: How Spread Compression Is Reshaping Middle Market Lending Platforms
With private credit spreads compressing toward 500 basis points in the upper middle market, origination efficiency has become the margin...
Forward for Specialty Finance
Private Credit’s Liquidity Test: What the Redemption Cycle Reveals—and What It Doesn’t
A Headline-Driven Moment The first quarter of 2026 has delivered the most intense period of scrutiny that the private credit...
The Unsponsored Deal Opportunity in Private Credit
Family-owned, founder-led and non-PE-backed businesses represent the largest underpenetrated segment in middle market lending — and the economics favor lenders...
The Beneficiary Cycle: ABL Is Capturing Market Share as Private Credit Recalibrates in the Middle Market
For most of the past decade, the asset-based lending market operated in the shadow of a private credit juggernaut that...
The Middle Market Manufacturing Squeeze: Tariffs, Supply Chains & the Dealmaker Ecosystem in 2026
The U.S. middle market manufacturing sector enters 2026 navigating a tariff environment that is simultaneously unprecedented in its complexity, uncertain...
Software Lending and the Recurring Revenue Premium
As private credit platforms flood the enterprise software market, lenders are increasingly valuing predictable subscription streams over traditional collateral —...
Unlocking the Backlog: Can PE Work Out From Under Long-Held Portcos and Reignite Middle Market M&A?
Private equity is sitting on the largest inventory of unrealized portfolio companies in the industry’s history, and the pressure to...
The Loss Rate Advantage: Why Direct Lending Continues to Outperform Public Credit Markets
The case for direct lending has always rested on a simple proposition: private credit should deliver better risk-adjusted returns than...
The Rise of Layered Capital Structures in Middle Market Finance
The binary choice between senior secured debt and mezzanine financing is fading. In its place, a more sophisticated architecture has...
The Rise of Insurance-Linked Capital in Private Credit
Insurance companies have become the most consequential new participants in middle market private credit. Apollo Global Management's insurance affiliate Athene...
