Business
Illiquid loans, investor demands: Blue Owl’s software lending triggers another quake in private credit
Blue Owl BDC’s CEO Craig Packer speaks during an interview with CNBC on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., Nov. 19, 2025.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
The latest tremor in the private credit world involved a deal that should’ve been reassuring to markets.
Blue Owl, a direct lender specializing in loans to the software industry, said Wednesday it had sold $1.4 billion of its loans to institutional investors at 99.7% of par value.
That means sophisticated players scrutinized the loans and the companies involved and felt comfortable paying nearly full price for the debt, a message that Blue Owl co-President Craig Packer sought to convey in interviews several times this week.
But instead of calming markets, it sent shares of Blue Owl and other alternative asset managers diving on fears of what could follow. That’s because as part of the asset sale, Blue Owl announced it was replacing voluntary quarterly redemptions with mandated “capital distributions” funded by future asset sales, earnings or other transactions.
“The optics are bad, even if the loan book is fine,” Brian Finneran of Truist Securities wrote in commentary circulated Thursday. “Most investors are interpreting the sales to mean that redemptions accelerated and led to forced sales of higher quality assets to meet requests.”
Blue Owl’s move was widely interpreted as the firm halting redemptions from a fund under pressure, even as Packer pointed out investors would get about 30% of their money back by March 31, far more than the 5% allowed under its previous quarterly schedule.
“We’re not halting redemptions, we’re just changing the form,” Packer told CNBC on Friday. “If anything, we’re accelerating redemptions.”
Coming amid a broad tech and software selloff fueled by fears of AI disruption, the episode shows that even apparently strong loan books aren’t immune to market jitters. This in turn forces alternative lenders to scramble to satisfy shareholders’ sudden demands for the return of their money.
It also exposed a central tension in private credit: What happens when illiquid assets collide with demands for liquidity?
Against a backdrop that was already fragile for private credit since the collapse of auto firms Tricolor and First Brands, the fear that this could be an early sign of credit markets cracking took off. Shares of Blue Owl fell Thursday and Friday. They are down more than 50% in the past year.
Early Thursday, the economist and former Pimco CEO Mohamed El-Erian wondered in social media posts whether Blue Owl was a “canary in the coal mine” for a future crisis, like the failure of a pair of Bear Stearns credit funds in 2007.
On Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that he was “concerned” about the possibility that risks from Blue Owl had migrated to the regulated financial system because one of the institutional buyers was an insurance company.
Mostly software
With skepticism over loans to software firms running high, one question from investors was whether the loans they sold were a representative slice of the total funds, or whether Blue Owl cherry-picked the best loans to sell.
The underlying loans were to 128 companies across 27 industries, the largest being software, the firm said.
Blue Owl indicated it was a broad swath of overall loans in the funds: “Each investment to be sold represents a partial amount of each Blue Owl BDC’s exposure to the respective portfolio company.”
Despite its efforts to calm markets, Blue Owl finds itself at the nexus of concerns around private credit loans made to software firms.
Most of the 200-plus companies Blue Owl lends to are in software; more than 70% of its loans are to that category, executives said Wednesday in a fourth-quarter earnings call.
“We remain enthusiastic proponents of software,” Packer said on that call. “Software is an enabling technology that can serve every sector and market and company in the world. It’s not a monolith.”
The company makes loans to firms “with durable moats” and is protected by the seniority of its loans, meaning that private equity owners would need to be wiped out before Blue Owl saw losses.
But, for now at least, the problem Blue Owl faces is one of perception bleeding into reality.
“The market is reacting, and it becomes this self-fulfilling idea, where they get more redemptions, so they have to sell more loans, and that drives the stock down further,” said Ben Emmons, founder of FedWatch Advisors.
New Delhi: After the US Supreme Court struck down reciprocal tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration, the White House has released a Fact Sheet, explaining that Trump has now invoked his authority under “Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974”, which empowers the President to address certain “fundamental international payment problems” through surcharges and other special import restrictions.
The Proclamation imposes, for a period of 150 days, a 10 per cent “ad valorem import duty on articles imported into the United States. The temporary import duty will take effect February 24 at 12:01 a.m. eastern standard time.”
Notably, some goods will not be subject to the temporary import duty because of the needs of the US economy or to ensure the duty more effectively addresses the fundamental international payments problems facing the United States.
These include certain critical minerals, metals used in currency and bullion, energy, and energy products, natural resources and fertilisers, certain agricultural products, pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical ingredients; certain electronics; passenger vehicles and more.
In addition, the President has directed the Office of the United States Trade Representative to use its section 301 authority to investigate certain unreasonable and discriminatory acts, policies, and practices that burden or restrict US commerce.
“The United States faces fundamental international payment problems, in particular a large and serious balance-of-payments deficit. As a result of its loss of domestic production, the United States must import much of what it consumes, sending US dollars out of our own economy and overseas,” the statement argued.
Tariffs imposed under Section 122 automatically expire after 150 days unless Congress votes to extend them. While the time limit is explicit, trade experts note that the President could allow the measures to lapse and potentially reintroduce them by declaring a fresh balance-of-payments emergency.
Unlike several other trade laws, Section 122 does not require a formal investigation before tariffs are imposed, allowing rapid action, according to multiple reports. President Trump has also suggested that other trade statutes remain under consideration, underscoring that the Supreme Court ruling targeted a specific legal pathway rather than tariffs themselves.
The Supreme Court decision striking down some of Trump’s most sweeping tariffs injects new uncertainty into global trade.
Source link
Equinox’s $40,000-a-year membership has a waiting list of more than 1,000 people, as demand for luxury health and wellness programs soars, according to the company’s chairman.
The high-end fitness chain’s “Optimize by Equinox,” launched in 2024, is one of the most expensive gym memberships in the world and includes everything from personal training and nutrition to sleep coaching, massage therapy and a “health concierge.”
Harvey Spevak, Equinox’s executive chairman, told Inside Wealth that the program has seen remarkable demand and highlights the “insatiable” demand by the wealthy for longevity and wellness products.
“Health is the new luxury,” Spevak said. “The No. 1 thing in the experience economy, besides travel, that the consumer wants, is, ‘How do I live a high-performance lifestyle?'”
The Optimize program is all part of Equinox’s strategy to become the leading luxury brand in the fast-growing business of health and wellness.
The global wellness market is expected to reach nearly $10 trillion by 2030, up from $6.8 trillion in 2024, according to estimates from the Global Wellness Institute. With the population of millionaires and billionaires aging, and an explosion in companies and products promising miracle cures, the wealthy are driving much of the spending.
Equinox has grown beyond fitness clubs to expand into hotels and hospitality, personalized performance programs, IV centers, blood-testing collaborations and more.
The company opened its first hotel, in Manhattan’s Hudson Yards neighborhood, in 2019 and is about to open a second, in Saudi Arabia. Spevak said Equinox will likely have close to a dozen hotels around the world — including in the Middle East, the Caribbean and the U.S. — within the next seven to eight years.
Equinox currently has 115 fitness clubs and has plans for 40 more — including locations in Nashville, Tennessee; Toronto; Charlotte, North Carolina; and South Florida. Despite being the largest retailer in New York by square feet, it’s continuing to add more in its home city, Spevak said.
The Optimize membership leverages Function Health, a lab test company, to provide clients with tests for 100 biomarkers twice a year, which could then serve as guides for a fitness, nutrition and lifestyle program tailored to each client.
Spevak said the program has rolled out in Los Angeles and Dallas and will eventually launch in New York.
The company also recently created a personalized program for women called EQX ARC. Using diagnostics, wearables and specialized coaching, the program is designed around the different stages of a woman’s life and health journey, and already has its own waitlist.
Spevak said the company’s IV-drip lounge at the Equinox Hotel in Hudson Yards — its only drip lounge thus far — has already become “a seven-figure business.”
Equinox Hudson Yards is the brand’s truest realization of its holistic lifestyle promise, giving members access to signature group fitness classes, a 25-yard indoor saltwater pool, hot and cold plunge pools and a 15,000 square foot outdoor leisure pool and sundeck. The Equinox at Hudson Yards footprint offers ample opportunity for training, working, regenerating, socializing, community building, eating and more.
Matthew Peyton | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images
While Equinox is private and doesn’t disclose financials, Spevak said 2025 was a “record year” for the company and he expects 2026 “to be even bigger.” He said other high-end consumer companies are reaching out to Equinox to partner on health and wellness.
“When you think about the economy moving from a product economy to an experience economy, a lot of big consumer companies are saying, ‘Well, how do I continue to serve my consumer and health and wellness, and who do I talk to?’
“There’s truly only one brand that has the authority and the brand equity,” he said.
A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
Transfer rumors, news: PSG inform Man City of Haaland interest
Brazil, India eye critical minerals deal as leaders meet
Cruz Beckham marks 21st birthday with romantic serenade for girlfriend
-
Business1 week agoTop stocks to buy today: Stock recommendations for February 13, 2026 – check list – The Times of India
-
Politics1 week agoIndia clears proposal to buy French Rafale jets
-
Fashion1 week ago$10→ $12.10 FOB: The real price of zero-duty apparel
-
Tech1 week agoElon Musk’s X Appears to Be Violating US Sanctions by Selling Premium Accounts to Iranian Leaders
-
Entertainment4 days agoQueen Camilla reveals her sister’s connection to Princess Diana
-
Tech4 days agoRakuten Mobile proposal selected for Jaxa space strategy | Computer Weekly
-
Politics4 days agoRamadan moon sighted in Saudi Arabia, other Gulf countries
-
Entertainment4 days agoRobert Duvall, known for his roles in "The Godfather" and "Apocalypse Now," dies at 95