April 29 – Blackstone’s roughly $80-billion private credit fund BCRED faced weaker investor demand and rising redemption pressure in the first quarter as geopolitical volatility, concerns over AI and increased scrutiny of private credit weighed on non-traded BDCs.
According to company filings on Wednesday, gross inflows slowed to $1.9 billion in the quarter, while repurchase requests rose to $3.2 billion.
The fund said its annualized distribution rate stood at 9.8% and that liquidity sources exceeded $15 billion, including about $7 billion of new financings.
Including capital invested by Blackstone and its senior leaders, the fund said it was able to meet repurchase requests for the quarter, while noting that institutional investors, which represent about 80% of the asset class, continue to increase capital commitments.
Non-accruals rose sharply to 2.4% of the portfolio at cost, up from 0.6%, driven largely by troubled investments including Medallia and Affordable Care. Payment-in-kind income, often watched as a sign of borrower cash strain, fell to 7.0% from 7.8%.
(Reporting by Patturaja Murugaboopathy in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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