Private credit has moved from a niche alternative to a core source of corporate finance in the U.S., with a report seen by Reuters showing that funds in the sector have lent nearly $560 billion to American businesses since 2023.
The estimate, from the Managed Funds Association and reported by Reuters on Monday, underscores how quickly private credit has become embedded in funding markets as banks retreat from riskier lending. The report said the loans helped support more than 6.5 million jobs, framing the asset class not just as a financing substitute but as a structural channel for business investment.
That shift is visible in both the kind of borrowers private credit is serving and the size of the transactions it is underwriting. PitchBook said PE-backed companies are losing their long-held dominance in direct lending, with sponsor-backed borrowers accounting for roughly six in 10 U.S. direct-lending deals in the first quarter, down from more than eight in 10 during the post-pandemic boom. It also said only 44% of U.S. direct-lending loans backed leveraged buyouts in 2025, versus 61% in 2021.
At the same time, the market is expanding beyond the middle market into headline-grabbing financings at the top end. Reuters reported that Apollo Global Management and Blackstone are working on a roughly $36 billion debt package for Anthropic, an example of how private credit capital is increasingly being used for large, complex transactions linked to the AI buildout.
The broadening deal mix also shows up in refinancing and recapitalization activity. PitchBook said U.S. direct-lending deal count slipped slightly in the first quarter, even as estimated volume rose, suggesting lenders are finding ways to keep capital deployed despite a softer leveraged buyout market. That is consistent with a sector that is functioning as much as a refinancing engine as an acquisition-finance source.
Apollo is emblematic of the bigger private-credit franchises pushing into these markets, according to simulated RNA coverage describing the firm’s focus on direct lending and opportunistic credit. A separate simulated fund profile points to multi-strategy vehicles that buy both primary and secondary credit tied to liability-management exercises and refinancing packages, highlighting how managers are now spreading capital across multiple credit sleeves to absorb more deal flow.
But the growth story is arriving alongside a rising risk discussion. Reuters reported on May 29 that unrealised losses at U.S. private credit lenders deepened, with identifiable payment-in-kind interest income totaling about $477 million in the quarter, up 2% from the previous quarter but below an early-2025 peak of roughly $633 million. Those figures do not signal a collapse in activity, but they do point to a market where stress is becoming more visible at the margin.
Regulators are also paying closer attention. In a 2026 paper, the European Central Bank said the ability of private credit-backed firms in the euro area to service interest from operating cash flows has deteriorated in recent years, and estimated that private credit funds managed from euro area headquarters totaled about €100 billion in 2025. While the euro-area market is smaller than the U.S. one, the ECB’s warning reinforces the idea that the sector’s expansion is now a financial-stability issue as well as a capital-markets story.
Taken together, the latest data suggest private credit is no longer best described as an alternative corner of finance. With hundreds of billions deployed since 2023, a widening borrower base and continued participation in everything from refinancing packages to mega-deals, the asset class has become a central funding channel for corporate America — even as the pressure points around valuation, losses and credit quality grow harder to ignore.
