Private Debt and Direct Lending - Articles & White Papers

Explore PGIM's Special Report to discover the firm's six best ideas for the year ahead, as well as its outlook and capital market assumptions.

Private credit has expanded in recent years, with the market reaching an estimated USD 2.28 trillion at year-end 2025 and projected to grow to approximately USD 4.5 trillion by 2030.

In his latest memo, Howard Marks discusses the evolution of the sub-investment grade credit market from its beginnings in the 1970s to its present state. He focuses on the rise of direct lending following the Global Financial Crisis, identifying the reasons for its fast growth but also the issues created by rapid capital…

Nuveen's sixth annual survey of 800 institutional investors shows a global investor base responding to uncertainty while remaining anchored to strategic objectives. Rather than wholesale repositioning, investors are refining regional exposure, expanding opportunity sets and increasing flexibility in decision-making. The…

Explore Robeco's insights anticipating market trends and their impacts. Gain valuable research from our experts empowering informed investment decisions.

Across corporate lending markets, some investments are easier to trade and exit than others – differences that deserve particular attention today.

While many institutional investors are familiar with the investment opportunities associated with financing private real estate, most tend to focus on commercial real estate assets, such as office buildings, apartments, retail spaces, industrial properties and hotels. However, they may be overlooking another compelling…

Amid geopolitical uncertainty, dispersion across credit markets – rather than a broad risk-off move – has become the dominant investment signal.

The software sector remains challenged by pressured valuations, uncertain recoveries, and less reliable sponsor support.

Themes, outlook, and investment implications across global fixed income markets.

Rising redemptions, weakening loan quality and other factors point to structural weaknesses in private credit. EU banks’ direct exposures look contained so far, but systemic risks could be magnified by leverage, inter-connectedness and poor transparency.

The brief covers: growth of private infrastructure investment; the role of energy, digital, and transport assets; financing across development, construction, and operational phases; risk factors in renewable and digital infrastructure; and implications for institutional portfolios.

There’s been a lot of overheated headlines and misinformation on private credit. It’s important to understand the facts.

Is private credit in crisis? Journalists certainly think so. Various stories have kept the asset class in the headlines: First Brands, Tricolor, redemptions from evergreen private credit funds, and the recent “SaaS apocalypse.” All this has led to increased scrutiny on private credit and its future as an asset class.

This report takes a pragmatic and credit-focused look at data center securitization in Europe, linking asset typology to structure and highlighting the key risk drivers that shape transactions’ credit performance.

Asset-based finance remains underpenetrated by private capital, but this is about to change.

SMBs face rising costs and policy uncertainty, with implications for hiring and growth.

Building on the U.S. Modern Market Index, Morningstar Indexes and PitchBook extend a public‑private view of market leadership to Europe through a rules‑based index that combines Europe’s leading public companies with its most significant late‑stage private firms—offering a clearer picture of where value is being created…

This paper aims to step back from the noise, address the issues we believe matter most, and offer a balanced perspective from an active credit investor.

Major equity markets declined in March amid heightened geopolitical uncertainty but began to recover in early April following the announcement of a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran.