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....
Forward for Specialty Finance
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...
Slowing Growth, Rising Stress: What the Middle Market’s Diverging Credit Signals Mean for Lenders and Sponsors
Lincoln International's Private Market Index (LPMI) recorded full-year 2025 EBITDA growth of 4.7% across its middle market portfolio, an improvement...
Banks and Private Credit Managers Are Building an Origination Infrastructure That Neither Could Construct Alone
The story of bank–private credit partnerships did not begin with a single announcement. It began with a regulatory constraint and...
The 200,000-Company Landscape: Where Institutional Capital Still Falls Short in the U.S. Middle Market
The American middle market is frequently invoked by dealmakers but rarely sized with precision. According to the National Center for...
When Borrowers Hold Two Maps: How Sponsors Navigate the BSL and Direct Lending Markets
Pricing convergence, repricing waves and the two-way refinancing flows that are reshaping sponsor decision-making in leveraged finance. The relationship between...
Scale Gravity: How Mega-Fund Growth Is Reshaping the Competitive Map of Private Credit
Something is shifting in the competitive geography of private credit that has less to do with interest rates or regulation...
Middle Market Debt Weekly: Soft June Jobs Report Chills Hike Odds as Private Credit Pivots to a Lender-Friendly Reset
The week ending July 4, 2026 delivered the first meaningful crack in an otherwise relentlessly hawkish narrative, as a startlingly...
The Warm Introduction Premium: Why Relationship-Sourced Deals Still Close at Better Terms
Private credit has grown from a niche corner of the alternative-asset landscape into one of the most actively populated segments...
The Unit Economics of Deal Origination: How Spread Compression Is Reshaping Middle Market Lending Platforms
The structural transformation of middle market direct lending over the past three years has been defined by a single, unrelenting...
