This paper provides a first look at the holdings of private credit funds using the MSCI Private Capital Universe, which is built from the reports that general partners send to their limited partners. Unlike the regulatory filings of business development companies (BDCs) used in most prior research, the data cover closed-end funds across lending strategies and regions and link fund cash flows to quarterly holding and security-level records. Our sample includes 1,131 closed-end funds, 54,520 holdings, and 67,956 securities, of which 46,118 are loans. Mature vintages return 1.2 to 1.5 times paid-in capital, and the median fund earns a net IRR of about 9%. Median returns are similar across strategies, but their dispersion rises with the strategy’s exposure to junior claims and equity. Portfolios differ sharply across strategies. Senior direct lending funds hold almost entirely senior debt, whereas subordinated direct lending and opportunistic lending funds hold about 45% of their value in equity, which subordinated direct lending funds hold mostly alongside loans to the same borrowers. GP marks show little deterioration in credit quality, but most direct lending exposure with reported fundamentals is to borrowers with high net leverage or negative earnings.
Jason Amoratis, MSCI
Gregory Brown, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School; Institute for Private Capital
Keith Crouch, MSCI
Robert Harris, University of Virginia, Darden School of Business
Yael Hochberg, Rice University, Jones Graduate School of Business
Wendy Hu, MSCI
Tim Jenkinson, University of Oxford, Said Business School
Steven N. Kaplan, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business
Sooji Kim, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
David Robinson, Duke University, Fuqua School of Business
