Retail Investors Steer Clear of Private Credit (IFR)

European private credit funds marketed to retail investors are in for a difficult year, despite assets in European evergreen funds nearly doubling to €154bn in 2025, as recent market concerns dent demand. Last year, European managers pushed heavily into evergreen structures to unlock previously untapped pools of retail capital, but concerns around the impact of AI and US business development companies limiting redemption requests have led to a pullback. Market participants stressed that the decline in fundraising was mainly concentrated among retail and private wealth clients, while institutional investors continued to show interest in the asset class. “In terms of growth and registration of new funds, we are definitely observing that they continue to grow and increasingly attract capital,” said John Anderson, partner at Goodwin. Compared with North America, the retail component in European private credit portfolios is much smaller, meaning that headlines around BDCs and redemption limits have had less impact on European managers than their US peers.

Read the IFR article for more.