The Data Tapes: August Edition II – Key Moves in ABS and Debt Markets

Welcome to The Data Tapes, your go-to source for the latest in private credit and ABS markets. Twice a month, we deliver bite-sized updates on debt financings, platform fundraises, data insights, market analysis, and the latest from Setpoint.

 🚀 What’s New at Setpoint

• Setpoint has secured $31M in Series B funding from 645 Ventures, Citi, Wells Fargo, and other key investors, reinforcing our commitment to building trust in credit and making asset-backed transactions instant and error-free. Learn about what’s next from our CEO, Stuart Wall.

💸 Debt Financings

• Channel, a commercial equipment financing company, closed its sixth securitization with a $125M ABS issuance secured by a pool of small business loans.

• Commercial Credit Group, a commercial equipment finance company, completed a $458.7M term ABS transaction with JPM as structuring agent and lead bookrunner.

• DLL, a global vendor finance company, closed its third US ABS deal of 2024, issuing $750M in notes backed by construction and transportation asset loans and leases.

• Kiavi, a tech-enabled lender to real estate investors, closed a $400M rated securitization of residential transition (RTL) loans. Kiavi has issued over $5.1B in notes since 2019.

• Lendbuzz, a tech-enabled consumer auto financing platform, secured a $400M forward flow program with Viola Credit.

• M&T Equipment, sponsored by LEAF Capital Funding, issued a $792.6M securitization backed by light industrial and construction equipment.

• Onity Group, a non-bank mortgage servicer and originator, partnered with Waterfall Asset Management to acquire reverse mortgage assets from a Waterfall subsidiary.

• Pagaya announced an agreement for Castlelake to purchase up to $1B of consumer loans through Pagaya’s network.

• PayZen, a healthcare patient financing platform, closed a $200M warehouse facility with Viola Credit and a syndicate of insurance companies, alongside a $32M Series B equity round.

• Tenn Capital, a UK-based short-term real estate lender, completed its largest loan agreement of £40M.

• Triad Financial Services, a provider for the manufactured housing industry, partnered with Monroe Capital to originate and purchase $300M of commercial community rental loans.

• United Leasing & Finance, a commercial equipment financing platform, closed a $125M revolving credit facility and a $300M warehouse facility with Bank of America, US Bank, and Truist.

• Unlock Technologies, a home equity investment platform, closed a new revolving credit facility with EastWest Bank.

• Voltera, a developer, owner, and operator of vehicle charging infrastructure, secured a $100M debt facility with Investec.

💰️Platform Growth

• Hayfin announces a partnership with Arctos Partners, who will support a management buyout of BCI’s majority stake in the firm

• HPS deepens its relationship with Guardian Life, expanding on Guardian’s initial investment in 2022. Guardian is also shifting investment management of $30B of assets to HPS

• Pagaya announced a partnership with OneMain to help serve a broader spectrum of consumers beyond OneMain’s typical underwriting criteria

• PGIM is rumored to be raising a new private credit fund to compete with Blackstone and Ares

• Sixth Street-led consortium is buying Credit Suisse’s US mortgage servicing business from UBS

• Victory Park Capital, a leading asset-backed private credit firm with roughly $6B in AUM, was acquired by Janus Henderson 

• Viola Credit announced a $600M first close for their new asset-backed lending fund

📈 Visuals

🗣️ Commentary

• “Private credit has proliferated, it’s become so big that it’s rivaling the broadly syndicated market — you’re going to see some trading, people looking for liquidity and to de-risk.” - Chris Santana, Monarch Alternative Capital

• “Most institutions don’t just want one equity manager, they want different managers with different focuses and different nuances within the equity portion of the portfolio. Increasingly, investors are thinking of private credit the same way.” - Kevin Gallagher

• “Importantly, that complexity and fragmentation [of the asset-backed lending value chain] makes the business very difficult to scale. We actually like that because it discourages competition. The businesses we are in are not the businesses that those alternative asset managers targeting $1T in AUM are going after. For us, at $13B these are meaningful segments. The end result is that even in a zero interest rate environment, our businesses generated 11-13% asset-level returns…with loss rates in 1-2 bps per year annually.”  - Michael Gross and Bruce Spohler, co-founders of SLR Capital

📖 What We’re Reading

• Dissecting the dual track economy with Armen Panossian and Wayne Dahl, from Oaktree

• In the Gaps, Ares Alternative Credit Newsletter, covering various trends in asset-based finance

• Jim Grant’s Current Yield podcast with Richard Byrne, President of Benefit Street Partners

• Private Credit makes huge bets on consumers, from Bloomberg

• Second Annual Fintech report from BCG and QED highlighting the state of financial technology

• SLR co-founders Michael Gross and Bruce Spohler on specialty finance market on Bloomberg