Private Credit Keeps Winning Over Wealthy Investors, Even After a Rocky Year

Private credit, loans made directly to companies by investment firms rather than banks, has become one of the hottest corners of finance. It has also had a rocky year. Even so, wealthy investors aren't backing away.

What the survey found

Goldman Sachs Asset Management surveyed 1,000 high-net-worth investors (with at least $1 million to invest) and ultra-high-net-worth investors (with at least $30 million) between June 29 and July 31, 2026. The results, reported by CNBC on Oct. 6, were striking:

• 93% of current owners of alternative investments said they were happy with them.
• 97% said their investments performed as well as or better than expected.
• Among investors who had heard negative private-credit headlines, 56% said their view didn't change, 30% became more cautious and 14% became more positive.

The rocky part

The headlines were real. In February 2026, Blue Owl Capital paused regular quarterly withdrawals from its U.S. private-credit fund aimed at individual investors, after a wave of redemption requests. It was a reminder that money in private funds can't always come out when you want it.

How private credit differs from a bank loan

For decades, banks were the main source of loans for mid-sized companies. After the 2008 financial crisis, stricter capital rules made banks more cautious about lending to riskier borrowers, and private credit funds stepped into that gap. Instead of a bank making a loan and holding it on its own balance sheet, a private credit fund pools money from institutional and, increasingly, individual investors and lends it directly to companies, often at higher interest rates than a bank would charge, to compensate for the added risk and the lack of a public market to trade the loan.

That structure is also why private credit can behave differently than public bond markets during stress. Because the loans aren't traded on an exchange, their stated values can lag behind what they might actually sell for if a fund needed to raise cash quickly, which is part of why some funds limit how much investors can withdraw at once, as Blue Owl did with its retail-facing fund in February 2026.

New doors are opening

Investment firms are racing to offer private credit to wealthy individuals and their advisors:

• Partners Group, which manages $186 billion, launched an "evergreen" global private-credit income fund on Oct. 9 for institutions and private-wealth clients, targeting returns in the high single digits to low double digits, according to Alternative Credit Investor.
• Monroe Capital launched an exchange-traded note on Oct. 15, giving wealth managers, private banks and family offices a listed way to invest in its direct-lending strategy.

The trend is global. Asian family offices are shifting money from private equity into private credit and secondaries in search of steadier returns, panelists said at the Asia PE-VC Summit in September, DealStreetAsia reported.

What it means for you

If an advisor suggests private credit, ask:

• How and when can I withdraw, and what happens if the fund limits withdrawals?
• What are the total fees, including management and performance fees?
• How are the loans valued, and how often?
• What kinds of companies are borrowing, and how much is each loan backed by collateral?
• How much of my total wealth should be in investments I can't easily sell?

Many advisors suggest keeping illiquid investments to a modest share of a portfolio and making sure you have enough cash and public investments for living expenses and emergencies.

The bottom line

Wealthy investors are sticking with private credit because it has delivered the income they wanted. The higher yields are real, but so is the cost: less access to your money and less transparency. Go in knowing both.

Sources: CNBC (Oct. 6, 2026), Alternative Credit Investor (Oct. 9 and Oct. 15, 2026), DealStreetAsia (Oct. 10, 2026)