Private credit still drawing institutional money

Institutional investors are still putting fresh money into private credit, even as redemption requests and loan-quality questions ripple through the market. (africa.businessinsider.com) JPMorgan Private Bank said on March 12 that institutional clients remain bullish on the asset class, while warning that redemption activity across the largest non-traded private credit funds averaged about 5% of net asset value in the fourth quarter of 2025. The bank said publicly traded business development companies were down about 16% over the prior year, with performance ranging from losses near 50% to gains of 10%. (privatebank.jpmorgan.com) BlackRock reported on April 14 that its private markets business took in about $9 billion in first-quarter net inflows, and Chief Executive Laurence Fink said those flows were led by private credit and infrastructure. Its iShares exchange-traded fund platform drew a record $132 billion in net inflows in the same quarter. (cnbc.com) (etfstream.com) Private credit is money lent by non-bank funds directly to companies, usually in loans that are held to maturity instead of traded daily like bonds. JPMorgan Asset Management said the market has grown to about $1.6 trillion and now rivals the United States high-yield bond market in size. (am.jpmorgan.com) The pitch to pension funds, insurers, endowments and family offices is straightforward: higher regular income than public fixed income, plus loans that often sit at the top of a borrower’s capital structure. JPMorgan said private credit has continued to offer a yield premium of about 200 to 300 basis points over high-yield bonds since interest rates rose in 2022. (am.jpmorgan.com) The pressure points are also clear. JPMorgan Private Bank said concerns now center on redemption requests, underwriting standards and heavy exposure to software borrowers, while non-accruals at recently reporting business development companies averaged about 2%, which it said pointed to isolated rather than system-wide weakness. (privatebank.jpmorgan.com) Jamie Dimon struck a similar note on April 14, telling analysts he was “not particularly worried” and did not view private credit as a systemic threat at its current size. He said some lending could move back to banks in a broader downturn, and Yahoo Finance reported that private credit funds had faced elevated redemption requests in the last quarter. (finance.yahoo.com) BlackRock and Preqin are framing 2026 as a year of continued expansion in private markets, not retreat. BlackRock said newer client segments are entering through evergreen and semi-liquid structures, while Preqin said North America-focused fundraising rose from $762 billion in 2024 to $861 billion in 2025 and that semiliquid private credit funds have been scaling rapidly despite recent challenges. (blackrock.com) (preqin.com) That leaves the market in a split-screen moment: more scrutiny on withdrawals and borrower quality, but continued allocations from large investors that still want yield and less-public financing exposure. The next test is whether first-half 2026 redemption data stays near manageable levels or starts to overwhelm the steady inflows managers are still reporting. (privatebank.jpmorgan.com) (etfstream.com)