US private credit investment vehicles held about $1.9 trillion in assets at the end of 2025, up from roughly $240 billion in 2012, the Federal Reserve Board said in research published Nov. 9.
Private debt funds accounted for the largest share, with $940 billion, the central bank said in “U.S. Private Credit Vehicles: Institutional Structure and Aggregate Balance Sheets,” published in its FEDS Notes series. The authors found differences in borrowing and investments among vehicles that often make similar loans.
The authors used newly published US Financial Accounts statistics to estimate assets and funding across four types of US-based investment vehicles. Their comparison covered private debt funds, business development companies, interval and tender offer funds, and middle-market collateralized loan obligations.
The authors defined private credit as privately negotiated debt financed mainly through nonbank investment vehicles. Their definition covers corporate lending, real estate and infrastructure debt, and loans backed by assets, without depending on who borrows or how the money is used.
The authors excluded loans and privately placed debt securities held directly by banks, insurers and other institutional investors. They said market-size estimates vary partly because private credit can refer to different instruments, investment strategies and financial intermediaries.
Private credit loans made up almost 80% of business development company assets, compared with 57% for private debt funds and 26% for interval and tender offer funds, the authors found. Such loans accounted for all assets of middle-market collateralized loan obligations, which issue securities backed by pools of loans to midsized companies.
Business development companies also borrowed more relative to their equity, the authors found. They averaged about $1 of debt for each dollar of equity, compared with about 25 cents for private debt funds and 5 cents for interval and tender offer funds.
The authors said investors' ability to withdraw money also differed across structures. Private debt fund investors generally cannot redeem their holdings before a fund closes, giving those funds stable capital without pressure to sell assets to meet withdrawals.
Interval funds must offer to buy back a limited portion of shares at scheduled intervals, the authors said. Tender offer funds give managers discretion over when to repurchase shares, how much to buy and what price to offer.
Nonfinancial companies, particularly midsized businesses, accounted for the largest share of outstanding private credit debt, the authors said. Borrowers used the loans for acquisitions, buyouts, investment, growth and refinancing, and could combine them with bank financing.
The authors said the differences in investors, withdrawal terms, borrowing and regulation helped explain why vehicles held different mixes of assets. Their findings distinguished the size of investment vehicles from their private credit lending, since private credit loans accounted for 57% of private debt fund assets and 26% of interval and tender offer fund assets.
