credit conditions

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.

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.

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.

A factory index above 50 reads as a growth signal, but hiring is still contracting and input costs are still high. Why financing sized to the headline misreads a margin story as a volume story.

The 2026 rate cuts your capital plan assumed are gone. The Fed is on hold, banks are tighter, and capital has shifted to private credit. How to structure financing for the rate environment that actually exists.