Private Credit Bank Run Begins: Blue Owl Gates After Shocking 41% Of OTIC Investors Ask For Their Money A week ago, in an attempt to calm the market, Goldman's economists published a lengthy , if at times disjointed, report discussing why a crisis in private credit would not lead to another financial crisis. We are about to find out if they were right. Recall that in mid-March, while attention was...
Private Credit Bank Run Begins: Blue Owl Gates After Shocking 41% Of OTIC Investors Ask For Their Money A week ago, in an attempt to calm the market, Goldman's economists published a lengthy , if at times disjointed, report discussing why a crisis in private credit would not lead to another financial crisis. We are about to find out if they were right. Recall that in mid-March, while attention was understandably focused on the Iran war, we explained why Blue Owl's February decision to commence liquidations of loans in its three core private credit funds to fund current and future redemptions, was the industry's "Margin Call" moment, to wit: First it was Blue Owl, the largest pure play Private Credit fund with over $300 billion in AUM. The company, the first to face massive redemption demands, refused to gate investors and instead announced it would sell $1.4 billion in private loans (it was unclear which loans were sold, but Goldman suggested that these are likely the best ones so as to find willing buyers, leaving the company with the toxic sludge) from its three BDCs ( OBDCII, OBDC and OTIC ) at 99.7 cents (a number which was meant to inspire confidence yet was laughable, especially since once of the "buyers" was a related-party insurance company, Kuvare, also owned by Blue Owl), to satisfy redemption requests. In our February 19 article describing the Blue Owl transaction , we said that "while it is unclear how deep the secondary market for private credit assets is, to the extent demand is relatively scarce, a transaction of this size could dry up market liquidity. If that assumption is true, other BDCs looking to exit portfolio investments could be jeopardized. Recall the immortal line from Margin Call: " Be First, Be Smarter, or Cheat." We then said that " this could very well be Blue Owl's "Be First" moment... " Sell it all, today" especially if it were to later emerge that the secondary market is only deep for higher quality private credit assets, like the on...
Applications for US unemployment benefits fell last week to just shy of a two-year low as Initial claims decreased by 9,000 to 202,000. Meanwhile, the US trade deficit widened in February by less than forecast on an increase in both imports and exports. Michael McKee reports on Bloomberg Television. (Source: Bloomberg)
Applications for US unemployment benefits fell last week to just shy of a two-year low as Initial claims decreased by 9,000 to 202,000. Meanwhile, the US trade deficit widened in February by less than forecast on an increase in both imports and exports. Michael McKee reports on Bloomberg Television. (Source: Bloomberg)
Exclusive: Ryan Bridge is co-founder of Raise the Colours, which has been criticised for anti-immigrant rhetoric The leader of a flag campaign group has been arrested on suspicion of causing religiously and racially aggravated harassment. Ryan Bridge is the co-founder of Raise the Colours, which has put up hundreds of union and Saint George flags across England and attracted criticism for spreadin...
Exclusive: Ryan Bridge is co-founder of Raise the Colours, which has been criticised for anti-immigrant rhetoric The leader of a flag campaign group has been arrested on suspicion of causing religiously and racially aggravated harassment. Ryan Bridge is the co-founder of Raise the Colours, which has put up hundreds of union and Saint George flags across England and attracted criticism for spreading anti-immigrant rhetoric. He was arrested on Tuesday and released on police bail the following day. Continue reading...
Italy nominated Poste Italiane SpA Chief Executive Officer Matteo Del Fante to a fourth term, keeping a trusted veteran in his role overseeing a group central to the country’s savings system and increasingly active in strategic industries. Silvia Maria Rovere retains her role as board chair, according to a statement Thursday from Italy’s Finance Ministry. The selections are subject to shareholder ...
Italy nominated Poste Italiane SpA Chief Executive Officer Matteo Del Fante to a fourth term, keeping a trusted veteran in his role overseeing a group central to the country’s savings system and increasingly active in strategic industries. Silvia Maria Rovere retains her role as board chair, according to a statement Thursday from Italy’s Finance Ministry. The selections are subject to shareholder approval at a general meeting on April 27. Del Fante’s reappointment underscores his role in advancing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni ’s agenda to secure control over strategic assets. The premier is poised to shake up leadership at state-backed firms as she seeks to bounce back from a referendum defeat on judicial reform. Read More: Italy Nears Picks for Leaders of €250 Billion State Companies Since taking the helm in 2017, 58-year-old Del Fante has expanded the state-controlled mail-delivery firm in areas including financial services, insurance, payments and energy. Poste in March offered €10.8 billion ($12.4 billion) to buy full ownership of Telecom Italia SpA , Italy’s former phone monopoly. Poste also plays a pivotal role in Italy’s public finances through postal savings products distributed on behalf of Cassa Depositi e Prestiti SpA , the state-backed lender that’s Poste’s largest shareholder. Postal savings represent CDP’s main source of funding, according to Fitch Ratings , underscoring Poste’s importance in providing capital for the state-backed lender. In his nine-year tenure, Del Fante has strengthened logistics and leveraged the company’s vast network of retail locations to enter new businesses. The transition has been most visible in telecom, where the Telecom Italia deal would roughly double revenue at the combined group to about €26.9 billion.
Quhuo Limited ( QH ) on Thursday said that it has received a Nasdaq delisting determination after its American depositary shares traded at or below $0.10 for 10 consecutive trading days. Trading in the company’s ADSs will be suspended at the start of business on April 6, unless the company successfully appeals the decision. Quhuo said it plans to request a hearing before a Nasdaq panel by the Apri...
Quhuo Limited ( QH ) on Thursday said that it has received a Nasdaq delisting determination after its American depositary shares traded at or below $0.10 for 10 consecutive trading days. Trading in the company’s ADSs will be suspended at the start of business on April 6, unless the company successfully appeals the decision. Quhuo said it plans to request a hearing before a Nasdaq panel by the April 6 deadline, though the appeal will not delay the trading suspension. There is no assurance the appeal will succeed. QH -29.72% premarket to $0.0759. Source: Press Release More on Quhuo Financial information for Quhuo
The demand for artificial intelligence (AI) data center capacity has been exceeding supply, and Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS) is one of the companies that's trying to plug this gap. It has been building new data centers at an aggressive pace. The neocloud infrastructure company operates data centers equipped with powerful graphics processing units (GPUs), renting out their capacity to customers look...
The demand for artificial intelligence (AI) data center capacity has been exceeding supply, and Nebius Group (NASDAQ: NBIS) is one of the companies that's trying to plug this gap. It has been building new data centers at an aggressive pace. The neocloud infrastructure company operates data centers equipped with powerful graphics processing units (GPUs), renting out their capacity to customers looking to run AI workloads. Yet Nebius isn't just a company that rents out processing power. It also provides access to large language models and inference tools to help customers build and deploy AI applications. The full-stack nature of Nebius' AI platform, which integrates hardware and software, has made it popular among AI companies and hyperscalers. Not surprisingly, the company has been a beneficiary of the massive investments in AI data center infrastructure , scoring huge contracts with some of the top players in this space. Continue reading
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has pushed back against growing anxiety over quantum computing's threat to digital assets, saying that the danger is currently being overstated. Zhao's comments follow recent research from Google's Quantum AI team suggesting that future quantum computers...
Binance founder Changpeng Zhao has pushed back against growing anxiety over quantum computing's threat to digital assets, saying that the danger is currently being overstated. Zhao's comments follow recent research from Google's Quantum AI team suggesting that future quantum computers...
While US inflation is on course to return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target in the first half of next year, policymakers have little room to cut interest rates this year, according to the International Monetary Fund . IMF staff expect a single rate reduction by the end of 2026, according to the Washington-based lender’s annual review of US economy, known as an Article IV consultation. “On balance...
While US inflation is on course to return to the Federal Reserve’s 2% target in the first half of next year, policymakers have little room to cut interest rates this year, according to the International Monetary Fund . IMF staff expect a single rate reduction by the end of 2026, according to the Washington-based lender’s annual review of US economy, known as an Article IV consultation. “On balance, staff see little scope to lower the policy rate over the coming year.” “A larger monetary easing would need to be predicated on a material worsening in labor market prospects and an absence of increasing inflationary pressures, including from higher near-term inflation expectations due to rising oil and commodity prices,” the IMF staff said in the statement. IMF executive directors, in a separate statement on the Article IV, said that with the Fed’s current policy stance being close to neutral, “there is little room to cut interest rates in 2026, particularly given the rise in energy prices, the likely passthrough to core inflation and the upside risks to global commodity prices that are likely to further delay the return to the inflation target.” Thursday’s release was a full version of the Article IV report, following a summary that was published in February. Under IMF staff’s baseline outlook, the Fed’s benchmark rate will reach a 3.25% to 3.5% target by year-end. It’s currently at 3.5% to 3.75%. “This would allow the economy to return to full employment and 2% percent inflation” by the first half of 2027, the fund said.
pioneer111/iStock via Getty Images Expansion Leads To Temporarily Low Free Cash Flow Small cap stocks can be harder to analyze because individual events like changing purchase patterns at a major customer or large capital projects can have a big temporary impact on financials. However, companies that have repeatedly worked through similar issues in the past often deserve the benefit of the doubt w...
pioneer111/iStock via Getty Images Expansion Leads To Temporarily Low Free Cash Flow Small cap stocks can be harder to analyze because individual events like changing purchase patterns at a major customer or large capital projects can have a big temporary impact on financials. However, companies that have repeatedly worked through similar issues in the past often deserve the benefit of the doubt when predicting future performance. That appears to be the case with John B. Sanfilippo & Son ( JBSS ), a $900 million market cap distributor of nuts, mixes, and snack bars. I have covered JBSS previously on Seeking Alpha from 2020-2022. While I sold the stock in December 2022, it was more to raise cash for personal needs than any out of any concern about the stock. Nevertheless, the stock has not done much since then, still trading below where it was at that time and producing a total return of around 2.1% annualized. Seeking Alpha 2025 was a particularly tough year for the stock as the price declined along with the total dividend payout, but the lower dividends were for a good reason. JBSS has been reinvesting in its own growth by expanding into the faster-growing snack and nutrition bar market. The company bought a bar manufacturing facility from TreeHouse Foods in fiscal 2024 and increased capital spending in fiscal 2025 and 2026 to further expand bar production capacity. (The company's fiscal year ends in June.) The temporary reduction in free cash flow could be concerning if only looking at the numbers, but JBSS has come through other periods of high spending in good shape and with continued growth. The company also manages the balance sheet conservatively, avoiding long-term debt except for secured loans such as mortgages, capital leases, or equipment-backed loans. This causes some fluctuation in the special dividends paid to shareholders but avoids excessive leverage and interest expense. To see how this strategy has worked out for the company, a quick review of hist...
Juanmonino/E+ via Getty Images When thinking about retirement income, the first investment portfolio expectations that most probably will come to our minds are the following: Dividend yields that generate meaningful income from our saved principal so that we can avoid selling assets to feed our consumption. Portfolio cash flows that flow in like clockwork: predictable and frequent enough (e.g., mo...
Juanmonino/E+ via Getty Images When thinking about retirement income, the first investment portfolio expectations that most probably will come to our minds are the following: Dividend yields that generate meaningful income from our saved principal so that we can avoid selling assets to feed our consumption. Portfolio cash flows that flow in like clockwork: predictable and frequent enough (e.g., monthly streams are preferred over quarterly ones). As "stress-free" investments as possible to avoid (a) wasting energy and burning nerves of worrying about investments when the economic conditions change to the downside and (b) experiencing income cuts. The essence boils down to high-quality and high-yield securities that can produce tangible current income streams without NAV erosion and dividend cuts. To achieve this investors have only a handful of asset classes from which to construct their predictable income machines. I would include midstream partnerships ( AMLP ), value-oriented covered call ETFs ( MLPI ), high-quality leveraged CEFs ( UTF ), infrastructure ( BIP ), preferred shares ( PFFA ) and leveraged fixed income products ( PDO ). These asset classes capture the majority of the suitable investment universe. An asset class that might be considered one of the least suitable is probably private credit - including BDCs ( BIZD ). It is not only about the current headlines (e.g., SaaSpocalypse, liquidity crunch within the private BDC space, troubled companies such as Tricolor and First Brands), but also about what has been happening on the ground. For example, since the Fed began cutting rates in September 2025, many BDCs have cut their dividends . Over the past year or so, BIZD - the largest publicly traded BDC ETF- has contracted by ~25%. In the process many well-established BDCs with strong "brand names" such as FS KKR Capital Corp. ( FSK ), Oaktree Specialty Lending Corporation ( OCSL ) and BlackRock TCP Capital Corp. ( TCPC ) have massively cut their dividends an...
M. Suhail/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction and Previous Coverage We previously published an article on Agree Realty Corporation ( ADC ) in April 2024 in which we issued a hold recommendation on the stock. Subsequent to that article, we published two reports ranking net-lease REITs by investment spreads where we ranked Agree second and third among a list of nine REITs in our coverage ...
M. Suhail/iStock Editorial via Getty Images Introduction and Previous Coverage We previously published an article on Agree Realty Corporation ( ADC ) in April 2024 in which we issued a hold recommendation on the stock. Subsequent to that article, we published two reports ranking net-lease REITs by investment spreads where we ranked Agree second and third among a list of nine REITs in our coverage universe. The rankings can be found here: Q1 2025 , Q2 2025 . In this article, we employ a top-down approach in evaluating Agree. We first look at the historic spread between the Nareit Free Standing Retail sector and the U.S. 10-year Treasury and opine on possible implications of the narrower than usual spread. We then look at Agree’s business model and highlight salient features of their business that influences their share price behavior relative to the sector. After, we drill down and evaluate Agree’s ability to generate economic profit under the current market conditions. Finally, we connect the economic profit, or spread, that Agree is able to generate to a valuation framework rooted in the value driver approach developed at McKinsey & Co. Based on the data we have examined, we find that Agree is sufficiently valued and maintain our hold recommendation. Macro Spread Please see Exhibit 1. Exhibit 1 (Nareit T-tracker, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) The spread between the U.S. 10-year Treasury and the implied cap rate of the Nareit Free Standing Retail sector has been, on average, 318 basis points. Agree makes up about 9.79% of the sector in terms of implied equity market capitalization and other prominent REITs in the sector include: Realty Income Corporation ( O ), NNN REIT, Inc. ( NNN ) and Essential Properties Realty Trust, Inc. ( EPRT ). One interpretation of the spread is that investors require a 318-basis point risk premium above the U.S. 10-year given the risk profile of the asset class. The latest data we have is from Q4 2025 which puts the spread at 235 bas...
Globalstar Soars On Amazon Buyout Report Amid Satellite Constellation Race Globalstar shares surged 12% in premarket trading in New York... ...marking their biggest jump in nearly five months, after the Financial Times reported overnight that Amazon is in talks to acquire the satellite operator, a move that would certainly intensify the race to build satellite constellations. The FT cited people f...
Globalstar Soars On Amazon Buyout Report Amid Satellite Constellation Race Globalstar shares surged 12% in premarket trading in New York... ...marking their biggest jump in nearly five months, after the Financial Times reported overnight that Amazon is in talks to acquire the satellite operator, a move that would certainly intensify the race to build satellite constellations. The FT cited people familiar with the Amazon-Globalstar talks and said both sides are still negotiating over "some of the complexities," including the fact that Apple owns a 20% stake in the satellite communications company, which operates 24 satellites in low Earth orbit, arranged in a Walker-24 configuration, and sells services for emergency messaging, asset tracking, remote voice/data links, and IoT connectivity in places where cell coverage is weak or nonexistent. Globalstar powers Apple's emergency satellite feature on iPhones, but that system is far more limited than the high-speed broadband network offered by SpaceX's Starlink. Amazon has deployed around 200 internet satellites into orbit as part of its Leo program, formerly called Project Kuiper. This is dwarfed by the more than 10,000 active satellites operated by Starlink, which provides high-speed internet to more than 10 million customers worldwide. The rationale for Amazon buying Globalstar's older, higher-orbit satellite constellation was not immediately explained in the FT report or by its sources familiar with the deal talks. But our view is that a potential buyout of Globalstar could give Amazon a faster path to more infrastructure, customers, and operational know-how to scale its Leo program and become a real competitor to Starlink, which is years ahead of any competition and even nation-states. Tyler Durden Thu, 04/02/2026 - 09:15