It would have seemed almost unthinkable for most private credit managers just a few years ago: Updating the value of their portfolios on a monthly basis.
After all, the opacity was part of the draw — that without the price swings of public markets, fund managers could look through cycles and weather any sudden storms.
But as the $1.7 trillion private credit market sets its sights on luring in money from individual investors — a potentially massive new source of funds — firms are increasingly finding the trade-off worth it to scale back their previous secrecy.
Many fund managers have launched vehicles that allow retail investors to buy in on a monthly, or even daily, basis. To set a price for those transactions, firms have to update the net asset value of a fund, which values its investments net of liabilities, by relying on indexes tracking broadly syndicated loans and asking borrowers for more frequent financial updates.
“We’ve seen a tremendous upshoot in the number of valuations that we’re doing more frequently than quarterly,” said Brian Garfield, head of US portfolio valuations at Lincoln International, one of the largest third-party assessors in the industry. “Anytime that NAV is being struck on a daily basis or a monthly basis or quarterly, you’re going to find the cadence of valuations is falling alongside that.”
To be sure, more frequent valuations isn’t bringing total transparency to the market. It’s hard for investors to parse whether any change in NAV is due to broad market fluctuations or individual loan performance, given marks on the latter are still generally released on a quarterly basis.
But, the move is significant for a market that’s traditionally updated the value of its investments quarterly.
Even five years ago, valuing direct lending investments monthly was the exception, not the norm, said Rittik Chakrabarti, co-head of US portfolio valuation at Houlihan Lokey Inc. Now, about 20 per cent of the firm’s direct lending clients require monthly valuations, he said.
“Information is going to have to be reflected more quickly as it emerges if you have a retail product,” Chakrabarti said.
Interval funds have raised almost $123 billion of capital as of the third quarter, up 9.4 per cent from the prior period, according to a report from investment bank Robert A. Stanger & Co. Almost two-thirds of that is dedicated to debt and fixed income.
“Right now, 100% of our portfolio is marked by a third party every single month,” Therese Icuss, a managing director at Fidelity Investments said on a panel at the CAIS Summit in Beverly Hills, California last week, adding marks are based on performance. Fidelity is receiving monthly financial updates from many of its borrowers, and that means “there’s no latency in our NAV,” she said.
Despite the more frequent NAV calculations, many firms still aren’t providing monthly updates to investors on the value of individual loans that sit within their portfolio.
The frequency and accuracy of marks are typically a point of scrutiny when private credit loans sour, as was the case after the bankruptcy of Zips Car Wash earlier this year. Private credit loans to companies typically do not trade, meaning there’s no standard way to know how the value of these loans change over time. That leaves managers to value, or mark, the loans themselves. And many have been criticized for having too much leeway in how they determine the value of their loans.
Investors shouldn’t confuse more frequent marks with the ability to trade, according to Barbara Niederkofler, who co-leads Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld’s investment management practice.
“These products are not like mutual funds where you can go to an online broker and decide that you want to trade,” she said, adding that buying in and withdrawing funds from these vehicles can be complicated.
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Published on October 25, 2025
