Our fourth quarter US private credit data is in, and the headline news is that it simply pays less and less these days to be a private credit lender.

9fin’s analysis found that interest rates on first lien private credit loans continued to hover around the SOFR+500bps mark in the fourth quarter — but some large deals, like Encore and PCI Pharma this month, are now starting to fall below that level, and the Q4 data shows how broad and persistent spread compression has been over recent quarters.

Our analysis also shows that the Q3 increase in market share for private credit funds versus the broadly syndicated loan market was promptly reversed in the fourth quarter, as the banks stormed back with more mandates.