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

• Join us for Capital Conversations in NYC – We’re co-hosting a happy hour with Fundbox at Bar Harta on April 2, 6-9 PM. Expect a great mix of investors, issuers, and asset-backed finance leaders. Let us know if you’ll be there!

• Pathway Homes is scaling smarter with Setpoint – By using Setpoint as Calculation Agent, Pathway Homes has cut funding times from a full day to just 30 minutes, improved accuracy, and streamlined lender communications. Read the story here.

💸 Debt Financings & Acquisitions

• America’s Car-Mart, a buy-here, pay-here used car dealership, upsized its asset-based revolving credit facility to $350M with a bank syndicate led by BMO. 

• Banker’s Healthcare Group, a consumer and commercial finance platform for healthcare professionals, closed a $297.2M ABS issuance secured by a pool of consumer loans. 

• Block (fka Square) receives FDIC approval to offer consumer loan product via Cash App. 

• Carvana, an online used car retailer, is preparing its first securitization of 2025, a $602.7M issuance backed by a pool of prime retail auto loans.

• Catalyze, a developer and independent power producer of distributed renewable energy assets, closed a $400M debt facility from ATLAS SP to support construction and aggregation of battery storage projects. 

• Crestline Investors, a leading provider of fund liquidity solutions, completed a $50M NAV loan upsize for a private equity firm. 

• First Help, a subprime auto platform, raises $239.7M through an ABS issuance backed by a pool of subprime auto loans. 

• Flex, a back office and financing platform for SMBs, raised a $200M credit facility from Victory Park alongside a $25M equity financing led by Titanium Ventures.

• GreatAmerica Financial Services, a small-ticket equipment leasing platform, closed its 26th securitization with $692.58M of privately placed bonds. 

• GreenSky, a point-of-sale financing platform, received preliminary KBRA ratings on its seventh 144A securitization, a $716.533M issuance collateralized by participations in a pool of ~$750M of consumer loans used to finance home improvement products. 

• Homeward Opportunity Fund, a fund managed by Neuberger Berman, raised $477.2M in mortgage-backed securities secured by revenue from a stream of 432 RTL loans.

• Huntington Bank is preparing to issue $3.5B in credit-linked notes that will reference a pool of auto loans extended to prime quality retail borrowers. 

• North Mill Equipment Finance (NMEF), a commercial equipment financing platform, closed a $410M securitization backed by a pool of equipment loans and leases. 

• OnDeck, a small business lending platform owned by Enova, is planning to issue a $261.4M private ABS issuance backed by small business loans. 

• Phoenix Aviation Capital, AIP Capital, and LuminArx Capital jointly acquired a portfolio of three Airbus A330-300 aircraft. 

• PVOne Capital, a tax lien investor, closed a $51.8M ABS issuance backed by a pool of real estate tax liens from 11 states. 

• Rivonia Road closed a $50M senior secured revolving credit facility to an insurance commission advance financing company to scale origination growth. 

• SoFi, a consumer banking and finance platform, finalized up to a $5B loan platform business agreement for personal with Blue Owl.

• SolaREIT, a provider of flexible capital solutions for solar and battery storage real estate, closed a $60M credit facility with Atlantic Union and Eagle Bank.

• Stratus Financial, a provider of financing solutions for student pilots, closed a $30M credit line to support loan origination growth. 

• Strike Acceptance, a subprime auto platform, is preparing a sale of $107.9M in asset-backed bonds collateralized by a pool of subprime auto and powersports loans. 

• Xapo Bank, a bitcoin custody and bank account, launched a BTC-backed US dollar lending product. 

• United Auto Credit, a subprime auto platform, closed a $324M ABS issuance secured by a pool of subprime auto loans.  

• Volvo Financial Equipment is raising $677.1M in a new ABS issuance secured by a pool of fixed-rate loans on trucking and construction equipment.

💰️Platform Growth

• AB CarVal and Greenprint Capital management expanded their JV to support a $5B tax equity investment pipeline. 

• Apollo, Citi are offering potential buyers of Boeing’s Jeppesen navigation unit the option to fund the acquisition through their new private credit partnership announced last September.

• Apollo, Mubadala, Alpha Dhabi JV hits $1B deployment milestone of the $2.5B target goal. 

• Banner Ridge raising $3.2B Fund VI to acquire stakes in special situations, distressed, and opportunistic credit funds. 

• BlackRock, Global Infrastructure Partners, Microsoft, and MGX expand their AI Infrastructure Partnership (AIP), adding NVIDIA, xAI, GE Vernova, and NextEra Energy. 

• Blue Owl files to launch a retail private credit fund focused on alternative credit, including asset-backed debt, loans, and private credit investments. 

• Capitala Group closed a $1B+ fundraise to invest debt and equity capital into US small businesses. 

• Charlesbank Capital Partners is targeting $1.75B for its Credit Opportunities Fund IV to invest in middle-market businesses with $20-100M in EBITDA. 

• DWS Group and Deutsche Bank announce a partnership that gives DWS Group first refusal on loans originated by DB. 

• Gracie Point launches GP Affluent Markets, an independent life insurance financing company to provide bespoke leverage life insurance payment solutions.

📈 Visuals

 🗣️ Market Commentary

• “Consumer credit is showing significant stress —> 90-day delinquency rates are approaching multi-year highs. This deterioration is particularly noteworthy given that 1) corporate default rates continue to trend downward, 2) investor appetite for credit remains robust with credit markets strong, 3) consumers enjoy strong with wage and employment gains. The New York Federal Reserve's Equifax data (chart below) reveals concerning trends in the auto loan sector. Current 90-day+ delinquency rates have reached 2.96%, the highest level observed in the past 25 years, excluding the Global Financial Crisis period. This time series data, spanning from 2000 to present, underscores the degree of severity.” - Bruce Richards, CEO & Chairman of Marathon Asset Management on Consumer Credit Stress

• “To build a bespoke, hyperscale data center today, you need a lot of skills and you need to be a very reliable partner. We said ok, mismatch of capital. Clearly more demand for hyperscale data centers than supply. And, there’s only a few people in the world that have true demonstrated expertise in I can assemble the land, the power, the cooling, and build to you spec, and deliver on time, and operate it for the next 15 years the way you want it operated. IPI was decidedly one of those. I think the best of them. Therefore, we said opportunity, capability - you can’t build this organically, but what a great low-risk, very income oriented with cap gain upside strategy. So we acquire an IPI and marry that into our fabric.” - Mark Lipschultz, Co-CEO of Blue Owl on acquiring IPI 

• “First, rising interest rates and a greater share of retirees have driven a huge increase in sales of annuities. And since annuities are relatively short products compared to traditional life insurance policies, this creates a need for insurers to park money in shorter assets. That’s important because there’s a much wider range of assets that are short compared with assets that are long, and they include private credit such as private placements, asset-based lending, middle market direct loans and other areas. These assets also tend to yield more than longer ones.” - Geoff Cornell, CIO of Insurance at AllianceBernstein on the Insurance Renaissance fueling private credit

📖 What We’re Reading & Listening To

• 2025 Fintech Trends (FT Partners)

• Americans See Growing Risk They’ll Get Turned Down for Loans (Bloomberg)

• Apollo: Connoisseurs of Complexity (Business Breakdowns Podcast)

• Banking’s Disruptive Competitors: The BDC Story (from our friend Marc Rubinstein at Net Interest)

• Blue Owl’s Marc Lipschultz - Skate to Where the Puck Is Going (Alt Goes Mainstream) 

• Carlyle’s Mark Jenkins Sees $23T Opportunity in IG Private Credit (Debtwire Credit Exchange)

• Q4 2024 Specialty FInance Market Update (Houlihan Lokey)

• Private Credit Opportunities: The Universe Keeps Expanding (Brookfield)

• Thoughts from the Road: Europe and The Middle East (Henry McVey - KKR)