Goldman Sachs has emerged as an outlier in a bruising quarter for private credit, with its Goldman Sachs Private Credit Corp fund disclosing that investors sought to redeem 4.999% of outstanding shares in the first quarter, just inside the standard 5% quarterly repurchase threshold used across much of the industry. That allowed the fund to meet all withdrawal requests in full, at a moment when several rivals have had to ration exits or lean on balance-sheet support to contain pressure.
The narrow miss matters because it comes amid a wider loss of confidence in parts of the roughly $2 trillion private credit market. Across Wall Street, concerns over valuations, transparency and the resilience of software borrowers have prompted investors to reassess exposure to illiquid lending vehicles that promise periodic liquidity but hold assets that cannot be sold quickly without cost. Reuters reported on April 2 that several funds had already capped withdrawals, while some large banks were tightening lending to the sector as the strain spread beyond fund shareholders.
Goldman’s position contrasts sharply with peers. Barings said investors in its Private Credit Corp fund sought to redeem 11.3% of shares in the first quarter, forcing it to honour only about 44.3% of each request. Blue Owl said investors asked to pull 40.7% of shares in its technology-focused OTIC vehicle and 21.9% in its larger OCIC fund. Apollo capped repurchases after requests reached about 11.2% of outstanding shares, while Ares did the same after requests climbed to roughly 11.6%. KKR also limited withdrawals after requests hit about 6.3%.
Blackstone took a different route, permitting a larger-than-usual $3.7 billion of withdrawals from BCRED and temporarily lifting its customary quarterly cap to 7%, backed by a $400 million injection from the firm and its employees to satisfy requests. Oaktree, meanwhile, said it would meet all first-quarter redemption requests of 8.5%, with Brookfield buying an additional slice of shares to help the fund do so. Taken together, those moves show managers are responding in different ways to the same core problem: how to offer limited liquidity without undermining portfolio values or being forced into distressed asset sales.
Goldman has argued that its steadier outcome reflects structure as much as sentiment. Reuters said institutional investors account for more than 80% of Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s broader private credit platform, limiting the fund’s exposure to the sharper swings seen in vehicles aimed more heavily at retail buyers. In its shareholder materials, the firm stressed that its evergreen products make up a minority of its wider alternative credit assets and that diversified capital sources allow it to pace deployment rather than chase asset growth. The fund had also reported a 3.5% redemption rate for the fourth quarter and described February 1 as its second-strongest subscription month since launch, with $568 million of inflows.
That defence is central to Goldman’s attempt to separate itself from a broader reckoning in private lending. In public comments and filings, the firm has acknowledged that it operates in the same market as its peers, but says the distinction lies in underwriting discipline, origination breadth and a lower dependence on fast-moving retail money. Goldman also said the fund generated about $823 million in proceeds from repayments and sales of portfolio investments in the first quarter, up from $669 million in the prior quarter, while its senior direct lending platform had more than $10 billion of institutional commitments in documentation or due diligence.
One of the biggest fault lines in the sector remains software credit. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence have unsettled assumptions about which software businesses will remain defensible, intensifying scrutiny of loans underwritten on growth expectations rather than traditional cash-flow measures. Goldman said it had been assessing AI disruption risk for years and rolled out an internal framework in early 2025 to evaluate the exposure. In its market overview, it said its exposure to annual recurring revenue-based lending, payment-in-kind usage and software concentration sat at the low end of its peer group, signalling an effort to reassure investors that not all private credit managers took the same risks in the boom years.
The narrow miss matters because it comes amid a wider loss of confidence in parts of the roughly $2 trillion private credit market. Across Wall Street, concerns over valuations, transparency and the resilience of software borrowers have prompted investors to reassess exposure to illiquid lending vehicles that promise periodic liquidity but hold assets that cannot be sold quickly without cost. Reuters reported on April 2 that several funds had already capped withdrawals, while some large banks were tightening lending to the sector as the strain spread beyond fund shareholders.
Goldman’s position contrasts sharply with peers. Barings said investors in its Private Credit Corp fund sought to redeem 11.3% of shares in the first quarter, forcing it to honour only about 44.3% of each request. Blue Owl said investors asked to pull 40.7% of shares in its technology-focused OTIC vehicle and 21.9% in its larger OCIC fund. Apollo capped repurchases after requests reached about 11.2% of outstanding shares, while Ares did the same after requests climbed to roughly 11.6%. KKR also limited withdrawals after requests hit about 6.3%.
Blackstone took a different route, permitting a larger-than-usual $3.7 billion of withdrawals from BCRED and temporarily lifting its customary quarterly cap to 7%, backed by a $400 million injection from the firm and its employees to satisfy requests. Oaktree, meanwhile, said it would meet all first-quarter redemption requests of 8.5%, with Brookfield buying an additional slice of shares to help the fund do so. Taken together, those moves show managers are responding in different ways to the same core problem: how to offer limited liquidity without undermining portfolio values or being forced into distressed asset sales.
Goldman has argued that its steadier outcome reflects structure as much as sentiment. Reuters said institutional investors account for more than 80% of Goldman Sachs Asset Management’s broader private credit platform, limiting the fund’s exposure to the sharper swings seen in vehicles aimed more heavily at retail buyers. In its shareholder materials, the firm stressed that its evergreen products make up a minority of its wider alternative credit assets and that diversified capital sources allow it to pace deployment rather than chase asset growth. The fund had also reported a 3.5% redemption rate for the fourth quarter and described February 1 as its second-strongest subscription month since launch, with $568 million of inflows.
That defence is central to Goldman’s attempt to separate itself from a broader reckoning in private lending. In public comments and filings, the firm has acknowledged that it operates in the same market as its peers, but says the distinction lies in underwriting discipline, origination breadth and a lower dependence on fast-moving retail money. Goldman also said the fund generated about $823 million in proceeds from repayments and sales of portfolio investments in the first quarter, up from $669 million in the prior quarter, while its senior direct lending platform had more than $10 billion of institutional commitments in documentation or due diligence.
One of the biggest fault lines in the sector remains software credit. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence have unsettled assumptions about which software businesses will remain defensible, intensifying scrutiny of loans underwritten on growth expectations rather than traditional cash-flow measures. Goldman said it had been assessing AI disruption risk for years and rolled out an internal framework in early 2025 to evaluate the exposure. In its market overview, it said its exposure to annual recurring revenue-based lending, payment-in-kind usage and software concentration sat at the low end of its peer group, signalling an effort to reassure investors that not all private credit managers took the same risks in the boom years.
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