Capital Markets & Trends

Acquisition leverage has recovered to roughly where it stood at the 2021 peak. On platform deals the senior layer has not, and the gap was filled by junior capital, which is not the pool most buyers approach first.

July set an all-time monthly record in equipment finance, and the coverage credited AI capital expenditure. Small-ticket volume set its own record in the same month, up 84.5 percent, and that is the segment mid-market borrowers actually borrow in.

Three United States public companies disclosed covenant amendments in 2026. Every creditor group said yes. One got a conditional bridge of a few months, another two years, a third nearly three. The breach severity is not what separated them.

July brought the first contraction in commercial and industrial balances all year, at minus 1.1 percent annualized. Over the same stretch, lending to non-bank financial institutions reached $2,016.1 billion, up 20.4 percent.

Nearly eight in ten buyers expect to fund an acquisition through one government-guaranteed program, and ninety percent expect a seller note that only twenty-nine percent of owners plan to write.

Asset-based finance was estimated at more than $6.1 trillion on 2024 data and projected to reach $9.2 trillion by 2029. Inside it are mandates written for contracted and intangible cash flows rather than for hard assets.

July CPI came in exactly as forecast, both measures eased, and Treasury yields fell across the board. Futures still priced a 42 percent chance of a September hike. What that asymmetry is worth on a floating balance.

A net 25 percent of surveyed lenders narrowed spreads on middle-market loans last quarter, and six of eight tracked terms moved the borrower's way. Complex, regulated, and non-sponsor situations capture that only if the file fits the mandate.