The year began with private credit firms sitting on around $400bn of dry powder. There is no doubt that the opportunities for direct lending will keep growing, but will it do so at a pace quick enough to absorb all of this unspent capital?

That is a key question for the market. Many of the biggest names in private credit have long outgrown their traditional middle-market investment strategies and moved upmarket. Multi-billion dollar loans are no longer the exception, but the norm. And it is such big loans that are the key to private credit firms efficiently deploying the huge amount of capital sent their way.

Q1 saw a sudden surge in deal making activity, but the latest 9fin data shows a return to normality in Q2. Just under 300 deals were completed in Q2, fairly similar to the number seen in Q4 24. Q1, on the other hand saw 450 deals recorded.

The decrease in deals done was offset by a return to a more median normalized deal size, akin to Q4 24. The first quarter’s flurry of deals had a median deal size of $133m, the smallest in the last year. This past quarter bounced back to $225m. There may be fewer deals, but they are bigger in size. (Of course if you want to see which firms are doing the most deals download our latest league tables report.)