Key insights
- Apollo, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley, and Blue Owl are limiting investor withdrawals from their private credit funds due to illiquidity. This simultaneous occurrence across the $1.8 trillion private credit industry raises concerns about a potential $265 billion meltdown. The inability to quickly sell illiquid corporate loans when facing high redemption requests poses a systemic risk, potentially leading to broader financial instability and negatively impacting US equities.
Source: https://beincrypto.com/apollo-private-credit-withdrawal-cap-stress/
Apollo's $25 billion private credit fund received withdrawal requests of 11.2% this quarter and honored less than half of them, capped at 5%. BlackRock did the same with its $26 billion fund, Blue Owl replaced withdrawal requests with IOUs entirely, and Morgan Stanley got hit with 10.9% redemption requests.
This is now happening simultaneously across the entire $1.8 trillion private credit industry. The structural problem is simple: these funds hold illiquid corporate loans that can't be quickly sold, so when everyone wants out at once, the math doesn't work.
Fortune is calling it a $265 billion meltdown. Whether this is a manageable liquidity event or the leading edge of something larger is the question nobody can answer yet.