Benchmark prior transactions, bonds, loans or company profiles using over 300 credit metrics.

Comparables

AI transcripts & instant analysis, making earnings season easier than ever.

Earnings

A full suite of ESG data and analysis. Built for your workflow

Spot undervalued credits and potential future restructurings with our purpose-built tools.

Distressed and Restructuring

Full Financial profiles with 3 statements, KPIs, segment splits & credit metrics. All traced to source documents.

Financials

New deal analysis and covenant comparison tools, understand key risks in seconds not days.

Covenants

Say goodbye to CTRL + F with our powerful search. Thousands of documents text searchable for any keyword or phrase.

Search

We've successfully predicted more than 65 price sensitive events - before they happened.

Deal predictions

We use AI to aggregate newsflow from 2,000 sources, and deliver it to your inbox quicker than anyone else.

News

Track high yield deals from issuance through to maturity, with integrated legal, credit and ESG analysis.

High Yield Bonds

Shine a light on private markets with 9fin's news and legal analysis of syndicated loans

Leveraged Loans

21st century tech and expert analysis to help CLO teams make informed decisions faster.

Structured Credit 

Find information others can't see in one of the fastest growing corners of finance

Private Credit 

Laura Thompson

Lara Gibson

Lenders are split on whether pricing in the private debt market has moved enough to account for the massive influx of interest from hung and redirected syndicate deals, as the liquid syndicated loan market looks to regain some of those opportunities come September following a recent market rally.

Private credit providers are tackling larger and larger deals, moving away from their bread and butter mid-market space, and biting into businesses with between €200m and €400m of EBITDA, giving them an increasing important role in multi-billion deals that would once have been the preserve of the syndicated market.

Despite the increase in size, a good spread of over 100 bps remains between syndicated and private deals. While this contrasts with a gap of around 200 bps to 225 bps in Q2, according to 9fin data and private lending sources, lenders on each side expect the syndicated market to start regaining some of its traditional role come autumn.

Euro-denominated leveraged loans issued in July 2022 clocked in an average of E+450 bps on an OID of 91.79, per 9fin data, as issuers were forced to make concessions to draw lenders in after the markets deteriorated through May and June.

Over in private debt, meanwhile, pricing averaged around E+600-625 bps and 96 to 96.5 OID in Q2, according to three direct lenders and a debt advisor, up from around E+575 bps and 97.5 OID in Q1. This is expected to widen out further to E+650-750 bps and 96 to 96.5 OID in Q3.

The trend does have some outliers. French telecoms equipment business ETC Group had to extend its pricing on margin equal to that seen in the private debt markets this month, coming in at E+625 bps in August. Differentiation came through its OID, instead, at 92. This is equal to deals such as UK pharma firm Norgine (priced at E+625 bps), albeit a good 100 bps clear of Euromoney’s level, which priced at S+725 bps. Some US buysiders looking at the ETC Group deal had previously admitted they struggled to see a reason to take on an unknown European name, which could have driven ETC to slim the dollar portion of its facility from €972.4m-equivalent to €525.9m-equivalent. Read more here.

Some direct lenders have suggested that they need to price at over E+700 bps to reach internal targets and the low pricing levels seen earlier this year are unsustainable long-term. They added that direct lenders are starting to lower leverage and increase pricing on deals as part of their risk repricing strategy.

Others suggested that a handful of large private credit funds artificially lowered private credit pricing in their eagerness to take down large hung deals earlier this year. Several direct lenders thought the pricing for Norgine was too low, for example, and opted to skip the deal.

There are also questions around whether private credit providers have the capacity to take on a significant number of large deals, as M&A activity is expected to ramp up again in H2.

“It was meant to provide a stop-gap for hung deals, but was it meant to do that for a full year?” the private lender asked.

Some suggested that private credit will revert back to being the option of last resort on syndicated deals rather than being treated equally in hybrid processes.

Several market participants suggested that the syndicated market could rebound in September — with several Healthcare and Services names in pre-marketing — following a rally in secondary markets. Month to date, euro-denominated loans have traded up an average of +2.2 points across industries, according to 9fin data.

“The structural problem previously was that you’d buy a loan in primary and it would immediately trade down, so there was no incentive to get it then and there,” said one buysider. “Now the market has rallied [over the past few weeks], there’s actually an incentive for buyer to buy when it first comes to market.”

This, alongside with the new issuance of CLO paper, should bring the brief period where private credit was trading inside broadly syndicated loans to a close. However, many buysiders expect the liquid market will still have to lean on the private market in places to get larger deals over the line.

“I’m expecting that any larger syndicated deal will need to be cut in a way that takes some pressure off the CLO shops — TLAs, second liens, ways to slice and dice to get leverage to appropriate levels,” said a second buysider.

“Competition in primary in September might mean we see issuers take back some of those margin gains for lenders and make that market more attractive for them again,” mused a third buysider, adding that struggles over similar, safer credits would likely mean “notable” grind downs in pricing. “The macro issues still persist, so I can’t see pricing return to those 2021 levels, but equally the recent pricing is a clear aberration that will temper back down.”

Liquid lenders set to regain market role as private debt pricing picks up

Owen Sanderson

Excess Spread — Sweet release, baked Danish

9fin team

Webinar Replay — Free fallin': Chapter 11 trends that defined 2025 and what's next

Sasha Padbidri

Luke Viner

The Singapore cross-class cramdown provision’s future is now

Webinar Replay — The art of the LME: defining trends in 2025, and looking ahead to what’s next

Save time, react faster to news, outperform your peers.

Asset Managers & Hedge funds

Save time, pitch more efficiently, and win business.

Investment Banks

Turbocharge your trading desk P&L, with the market's fastest news alerts.

Sales & Trading

Spot novel covenants, save time drafting and win business.

🍪 Our Cookies

Liquid lenders set to regain market role as private debt pricing picks up

Read all our public content for free

Recently Published

Excess Spread — Sweet release, baked Danish

Webinar Replay — Free fallin': Chapter 11 trends that defined 2025 and what's next

The Singapore cross-class cramdown provision’s future is now

Webinar Replay — The art of the LME: defining trends in 2025, and looking ahead to what’s next

What are you waiting for?