The Data Tapes

Setpoint's Bite-Sized Debt Newsletter: June Edition I

June 11, 2025

The Latest in ABS and Debt Markets

Welcome to The Data Tapes—your biweekly snapshot of private credit and ABS markets. In each edition, we bring you concise updates on debt financings, platform fundraises, data insights, market trends, and the latest from Setpoint.

🚀 What’s New at Setpoint

💸 Debt Financings & Acquisitions

💰️Platform Growth

📈 Visuals

 🗣️ Market Commentary

  • “While we’re cautious on some of the buyout financing, because I think that has gotten quite competitive, I think when you look at asset-based credit, and frankly some of the larger asset classes, I think the growth is just getting started. We’ve done $7B of originations in asset-based credit since the fall of 2023, and we’re really just scratching the surface. People talk about whether there’s a bubble in private credit - you talk about the opportunity set - we believe there’s a $6T opportunity set. So yes it’s growing, but the amount of capital that does need to move from the small and regional banking system into private credit is immense. “ - Drew McKnight, Co-CEO of Fortress on Opportunities in Asset-Based Credit

  • “Until pretty recently - I want to say maybe going back to the 2017-2018 timeframe - it was fairly clubby. In other words, only the largest of the insurance companies were participating in ABF markets at all. And that left a lot of others out. The reason it left others out is that if you didn’t have your own team internally doing [asset-based finance], you had no way to access this market. Why ABF and insurance is becoming increasingly focused on insurance is because now most insurance companies have real access points to this market, in particular through asset managers. Those with that expertise in house are able to offer that to insurance companies of all sizes. It’s gone from being very clubby and almost exclusive to a lot more accessible by nearly every insurance company out there.” - Keith Ashton, Co-Head of Ares Alternative Credit on the growing intersection between Asset-Based Finance and Insurance

  • “There’s an outlook or expectation of a bit of a two-speed economy for the consumer, right? So when you look at consumers who are homeowners, there's a lot of resiliency expected to continue there. Edwin highlighted the net worth gap, and I think another thing that’s really important to think about is just the amount of home equity available in this country since really COVID. The mortgage market today is about a $13 trillion asset class, the aggregate value of all homes in the country is about $40 to $45 trillion. So, there's a tremendous amount of home equity, that provides you with a lot of security. But that also leaves you with kind of like everyone else, that Edwin and I already highlighted, the $10,000 kind of net worth number, which is pretty shocking as a bifurcation.” - Jason Steiner, Portfolio Manager, Asset-Based Finance at PIMCO on the Two-Speed Economy for the US Consumer

  • “It’s true that there are trillions of dollars in home equity…But if you look at the individual mortgages, you can actually see that borrowers are making very small down payments on average, and that there are plenty of people with no equity in their homes.” - Ryan Singer, Head of Residential Credit at Balbec Capital on Risks Posed by Home Equity Securitizations

  • “Not all those companies will make the AI adjustment and there will be creative destruction that comes their way…This is one sector that is really causing me to take a lot of pause. I think it’s a great place to invest as private equity, but not such an intelligent place to invest if you are private credit capped at par on the software companies.” - Bruce Richards, CEO of Marathon on Risks Posed by Direct Lending to Software Businesses

📖 What We’re Reading & Listening To

Reading
Podcasts & Interviews