When the Tariff Bill Lands in the Borrowing Base: ABL Mechanics Under Import-Cost Inflation
The first-order effect of the 2025 tariff escalation on middle market manufacturing has registered most visibly in income statements, but...
Forward for Specialty Finance
Middle Market Debt Weekly: ABL Capacity Holds Firm as Fed Raises Rates, Private Credit Defaults Climb
Asset-based lenders closed the week with the cleanest possible illustration of why collateral-indexed capital behaves differently from everything else in...
From Balance Sheet to Specialty Lender: Capital-Light Corporate Models and the Verified Scale of Asset-Based Finance
The shift toward capital-light corporate operating models has been reshaping balance sheets for more than a decade, but the financial...
After Unitranche: How the Middle Market Capital Stack Is Being Pulled Apart from Inside
The numbers tell a story of compression. After peaking at 716 basis points in March 2023, global new-issue direct loan...
The Deployment Gap Widens as Direct Lending Volume Falls to a Two-Year Low
“Strong realized returns on a seasoned book can mask the difficulty of building the next one at comparable quality. The...
Private Credit Writes Investment-Grade Paper: The $36 Billion Chip Lease and the Convergence Trade
“Private credit is not merely growing; it is acquiring the plumbing of the broader capital markets it once positioned itself...
Where the Risk Sits: A Verified Look at Subordinate Debt, Recovery Rates and Intercreditor Dynamics in the Middle Market
The capital stack is not an abstract concept. It is a priority schedule that answers a single question when a...
Factoring’s Quiet Resurgence
The oldest form of commercial finance is having a notably good year. Global factoring turnover surpassed four trillion euros for...
Covenant Defaults and the “Bad PIK” Signal: What Lincoln International’s Senior Debt Index Is Telling Direct Lenders
The debate over private credit stress tends to default, as debates in financial services often do, to the headline number....
Middle Market Debt Weekly: Refinancing Rush Meets Rate Realities
Secured lending opened the week with a structure worth studying. On August 17, Lifetime Brands closed a refinancing that replaced...
