Credit secondaries is the business of buying and selling existing interests in private-credit funds and portfolios rather than committing to a new fund at its launch. A buyer acquires a...

Direct lending is the practice of non-bank institutions making loans straight to companies, most often privately held middle-market businesses, without syndicating the debt through the broadly traded loan or bond...

Distressed debt is the debt of companies in or near financial trouble, trading well below par because the market doubts the borrower will pay in full and on time. Investors...

Energy finance is the business of funding the assets and companies that produce, move, store, and increasingly decarbonize energy — oil and gas fields, pipelines and terminals, power plants, and...

The equity tranche is the first-loss, most subordinated piece of a securitization or collateralized loan obligation — the residual claim that is paid last and absorbs losses first when the...

Esoteric ABS refers to asset-backed securities collateralized by non-traditional, niche cash-flow streams that fall outside the mainstream consumer and corporate categories — assets such as royalties, whole-business franchise fees, aircraft...

A forward flow is a contractual arrangement in which a buyer commits in advance to purchase assets an originator has not yet created — typically loans or receivables — as...

Fund finance is the practice of lending to investment funds and their managers, using the fund’s own structural features — rather than its underlying portfolio companies — as the basis...

A global alternative manager is a large, diversified investment firm that manages capital across multiple private and non-traditional asset classes — typically some combination of private equity, private credit, real...

GP secondaries are secondary-market transactions initiated and led by a fund’s general partner — the manager — rather than by an investor selling its stake. In a GP-led deal, the...

High net worth is a wealth-segmentation term that identifies individuals and families whose investable assets place them well above the mass-market investor, and who are therefore served by dedicated private-banking,...

A high yield bond is a corporate debt security issued by a company whose credit rating falls below investment grade, meaning rating agencies judge it to carry a higher probability...

Hybrid capital is financing that deliberately blends features of both debt and equity, occupying the layer of a company’s or fund’s capital structure between the two. Instruments in this category...

Illiquid credit refers to debt investments that cannot be sold quickly at a dependable price because they trade rarely, in small size, or not at all on a secondary market....

Infrastructure debt is lending secured by, or structured around, the long-lived physical assets and essential services that underpin an economy — power generation and transmission, transport such as roads, airports,...

Institutional finance is the segment of the financial system that serves large organizations — banks, insurers, pension and sovereign funds, asset managers, corporates, and governments — rather than individual retail...

An institutional investor is an organization that pools and deploys large sums of capital on behalf of its members, policyholders, shareholders, or beneficiaries. Pension funds, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds,...

Insurance-linked securities (ILS) are financial instruments whose returns are driven by insurance or reinsurance risk — most commonly natural-catastrophe events — rather than by the credit or equity performance of...

An investment committee is the governance body that reviews, approves, and monitors the investment decisions of a fund, firm, or asset owner. Composed of senior investment professionals and sometimes independent...

Investment grade asset-backed finance (IG ABF) is the segment of asset-backed finance in which the debt carries investment-grade credit standing — ratings or credit assessments in the BBB-/Baa3 range or...