June 4 (Reuters) - Blackstone has capped withdrawals at its flagship private credit fund as redemption requests rose in the second quarter, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday, becoming the latest
asset manager to do so.
Investors in Blackstone Private Credit Fund (BCRED) sought to pull 10% of outstanding shares in the second-quarter tender offer, compared to 7.9% in the previous quarter. The fund will fulfill repurchase requests representing 5% of shares outstanding.
Redemptions across non-traded private credit funds have risen in recent months as a string of negative headlines around the multi-trillion-dollar asset class unnerved wealthy investors.
While most asset managers had already capped redemptions at the usual 5% limit during the first-quarter tender offers, Blackstone and Oaktree Capital Management had refrained from doing so, fulfilling 100% of the repurchase requests.
Redemption windows at key U.S. non-traded private credit funds for the second quarter began closing last Friday, with market participants keeping a close eye on the rate of withdrawal requests.
Cliffwater was the first to report second-quarter redemptions on Tuesday. The withdrawal requests at its flagship $31.3 billion private credit fund worsened to 17% from 14% in the first quarter.
Non-traded private credit funds, like BCRED, offer investors liquidity through quarterly tender offers of up to 5% of shares.
The fund remains well capitalized, with repayments and inflows outpacing share repurchases, it said.
Capital inflows were roughly 2% of net asset value at BCRED in the second quarter, resulting in a net outflow of roughly 3% of NAV.
"Repurchase activity decelerated in the back half of the offer period, with onshore volumes below prior quarter levels," the fund said in a shareholder letter.
(Reporting by Arasu Kannagi Basil in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Shinjini Ganguli)
