The Data Tapes: October Edition I – 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

• Introducing Setpoint Analytics: Our new no-code business intelligence tool transforms portfolio data into actionable insights. Check it out. 

• In the News: CEO Stu Wall talks automation in credit infrastructure with ABF Journal’s Editor, Rita Garwood. Watch the full interview here.

• Heading to ABS East? Let’s connect! Fill out your info here to schedule time with our team.

• Capital Conversations: This week, we brought capital markets leaders together for a dinner at NYC’s historic Delmonico’s. Want to be part of our next event? Sign up here.

💸 Debt Financings

• Afore Insurance Services, a retail insurance brokerage, closed a new credit facility with Crestline to fund strategic acquisitions and provide growth capital. 

• Aqua Finance, a home improvement and recreational purchase financing company owned by Athene/Apollo, received preliminary ratings on four classes of notes for a $418.53M ABS issuance backed by marine, home improvement, and recreational vehicle contracts.  

• Carmoola, a UK-based consumer auto finance company, closed a £100M credit facility with NatWest to scale origination volume.  

• Castlelake closed a $1B credit facility from a bank syndicate including DB, Goldman, BNPP, and Mtisubishi to finance the purchase over 60 aircraft. 

• Credit Acceptance Corporation (CACC), a consumer auto finance platform, increased capacity to $500M in one of their revolving warehouse facilities and extended. CACC also announced the closing of a $600M asset-backed secured financing. 

• Forward Financing, a revenue-based financing platform for small businesses, increased their $250M credit facility to $450M. 

• Fundu Oy, a Finnish unsecured SME lender, closed a €200M credit facility with Pollen Street.

• Harley Davidson raised $631.5M in asset-backed securities secured by retail motorcycle contracts.

• High Rise Financial, a personal injury-focused litigation finance firm, closed a $100M credit facility with a bank syndicate.

• loanDepot, a consumer mortgage finance platform, closed a $300M offering of notes backed by a revolving warehouse line of credit, secured by first-lien residential mortgage loans.  

• MMP Capital, an equipment leasing platform, renewed its $125M secured warehouse facility with DB to finance lease originations. 

• OnDeck, a small business lender, received preliminary KBRA ratings on $261.353M in asset-backed notes for a new ABS issuance.

• Oportun, a mission-driven consumer finance company, extended its warehouse facility with a $306M commitment from Goldman Sachs (senior) and Jefferies (mezzanine).

• Outgo, a vertical banking and factoring business for freight carriers, closed a $50M credit facility with Upper90 to finance invoice factoring alongside a $15M equity financing. 

• Saluda Grade, a residential real estate investment platform, closed a new $206M securitization backed by Unlock Technologies home equity agreements. They also announced the closing of GRADE 2024-LOC3, a $304M securitization backed by HELOCs. 

• Toorak Capital Partners, a leading capital provider to the residential real estate market, announced the close of its second rated RTL securitization, a $237.5M deal.

• Trinity Capital, a credit fund for growth stage companies, upsized its credit facility with KeyBank by $70M.

• Unlock, a platform for home equity agreement contracts, closed a $50M revolving credit facility with Texas Capital.

• Verus Mortgage Capital, a mortgage originator, is floating $669.9M in mortgage backed securities secured by non-prime mortgage assets.

💰️Platform Growth

• Apollo & Citi announced a partnership for a $25M private credit and direct lending program, providing Citi’s banking clients access to corporate and financial sponsor transactions. 

• ATLAS SP, Apollo & BNP Paribas announced a strategic financing and partnership. Through the partnership, BNP Paribas will commit $5B in day-1 financing to support investment-grade, asset-baced credit origination by Apollo and ATLAS SP.

• BlackRock & Santander signed an MoU whereby funds managed by BlackRock will invest up to $1B annually in select project finance, energy finance, and infrastructure debt opportunities with Santander.

• Blackstone hires ex-Värde and Jefferies alums Aneek Mamik and Chris Yonan to expand BXCI’s push into asset-backed finance.

• Blue Owl announced the completion of its acquisition of Atalaya, which was previously announced in July 2024. 

• Golub announced a strategic partnership with Mizuho, where Mizuho purchased a passive, non-voting minority in Golub’s management company. 

• ICG announced the close of its North American Credit Partners Fund III with $1.9B in commitments, to provide private debt financing to middle-market sponsor backed businesses. 

• J.P. Morgan picks partners to boost its reach in private credit, including Cliffwater, FS Investments, and Shenkman Capital. The bank will originate loans and invest in them alongside selected partners.

• Monarch Alternative Capital raised over $4.7B for its sixth closed-end fund focused on opportunistic credit and real estate. 

• Rosenthal & Rosenthal, an asset-based lending firm, acquires Accord Equipment Finance’s assets. 

• RoundShield, an investment firm focused on European asset-backed private credit, closed RS Fund V with over $1B in commitments.

• Silver Point, a global credit fund, announced the final close of its latest opportunistic credit fund at $4.6B in commitments. 

• SLR announced the acquisition of an asset-based factoring portfolio and operations from Webster Bank’s commercial finance business, representing a $115M acquired portfolio.

📈 Visuals

 🗣️ Market Commentary

• “I think there’s only a handful of us that can do it, and then our incentives are aligned to do it well,” Sheldon said about asset managers offering the many flavors of private credit. “I think we have our chess pieces on the board. I do think that there’s a lot of younger strategies that are still in that earlier phase of growth.” (Christopher Shelden, KKR on the ingredients required for multi-strategy credit managers to scale)

• “I've been in asset-based finance for 24 years now, and other than the global financial crisis, I’ve never seen a credit market this interesting from a relative value perspective.” (Avi Korn, KKR on the opportunity for asset-backed credit)

• “In every market, banks are being asked to do less and investors are being asked to do more,” Rowan said. “We are just at the beginning of this trend…At the end of the day private [markets] will win over public [markets]. That doesn’t mean replace public, it just grows faster. Private will win over banks. Again they won’t replace banks, just grow faster.” (Mark Rowan on the catalysts driving Apollo’s goal to double AUM by 2029)

📖 What We’re Reading & Listening To

• An Alternative Perspective: Past, Present, and Future, from KKR 

• Apollo’s 2024 Investor Day presentation

• Brookfield Asset Management’s 2024 Investor Day presentation

• Debt Matters podcast with Rich Davis from Paul Hastings, from our friends at Ensemblex

• Demystifying private credit investing, from AllianceBernstein

• Global Private Debt Report, from Pitchbook  

• Mastering the journey of debt financing for fintech startups, from Punit Dholakia at Pipe

• Next Era of Private Credit, a new report from McKinsey

• Private Credit and Banks Team Up, from Matt Levine