Edition #006

Intelligence · Private Credit & Infrastructure Intelligence

Week covering 21 – 28 September 2026

Five things this week

1. AI debt is safest where a big tech tenant pays the rent, and riskiest where it depends on an AI lab's revenue or on GPUs as collateral. Oracle warned it may delay rent on a Blue Owl-owned campus because power may be late. SoftBank paid up to 9.75%, about 470bp over Treasuries, to fund OpenAI. GPU mezzanine was quoted at SOFR+725. Stargira's paper maps where the loss risk sits. → Section 1
2. The redemption queue is shrinking in new demand, not in backlog. Q3 requests fell at most large semi-liquid credit funds, but still ran two to three times the 5% cap, much of it from investors re-tendering. → Section 2
3. Wealth money is reallocating, not leaving. US non-listed credit fundraising fell 47% in the year to August while infrastructure rose 65%, and Blackstone, Goldman and KKR put one-ticket, infrastructure and European credit evergreens on the non-US shelf. → Section 2
4. Data-centre developers now carry their own power bill. California, Texas, a Vistra contract and a Georgia tariff moved grid, generation and collateral costs onto the campus in one week. → Section 3
5. The rate shock shows up as soft defaults. The US 10-year closed at 5.18%, the Fed hiked and may hike again, and 88% of Fitch's private credit default events were amendments, PIK or extensions rather than missed payments. → Section 6

How to read this edition. Each item opens with its conclusion in bold italics, then the facts, then one short block for wealth managers and one for fund managers. Source links sit in numbered notes at the end. Terms new this cycle are defined in the short glossary; the full standing glossary lives at NL1 Glossary.

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Key Upcoming Events

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Watchlist for Next Week

Closing out edition 005's list. Item 4, a second hyperscaler walk-away, is advanced but not met: Oracle kept the Jupiter lease and sought a right to delay rent. Item 5, Q3 tender disclosures, is partly answered: requests fell at most large funds but the Blue Owl funds have not reported. Still open with no new report this cycle: the second TCPC loan tranche, RUM Group's financing, and whether any manager files a "hybrid evergreen" with a run-off class. BXPM is multi-strategy, not hybrid.

This week's five:

1. Blue Owl's Q3 tender results. Blue Owl Credit Income Corp. and Blue Owl Technology Income Corp. had Q2 requests of 18.8% and 38.1% of NAV. Their Q3 offers were filed on 26 August and no results were filed by 28 September. They decide whether "easing" holds across the sector.
2. Project Jupiter's permit and pipeline. New Mexico must decide the air permit by 23 November, and the pipeline crossing has twice been rejected. Watch whether Blue Owl and Oracle agree the event is power-related, which is the trigger for rent deferral.
3. The October FOMC and the default mix. Odds of an October hike swung between 64% and more than 75% in one week. Watch whether distressed extensions keep rising as a share of Fitch events.
4. The AI IPO window. Firmus in late October and SB Energy no earlier than mid-October. A weak reception would put more of the AI build-out back on debt.
5. Texas after 19 October. TCEQ's compliance report will show whether in-flight permits are still processed. New Era's prospectus already warns of delay.

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Caveats / unverified

• Project Jupiter. The date and text of Oracle's notice are not public in any source we hold; Oracle's 10-Q does not mention it. The rent-deferral right of up to three years rests on Bloomberg alone. The ~$18bn bank loan and the 89–91 cent quote rest on earlier press reports, the quote on the FT relayed by Reuters; a quote is not a trade, and it predates the notice. Blue Owl's 9%/11% yields come from one person familiar. No source describes Blue Owl as a lender.
• The house paper. Layer placement of each deal in Figure 1 is Stargira's reading.
• Single-origin reports. Firmus pricing (Bloomberg), SB Energy's IPO delay (NYT, disputed by an Investing.com source), BXPM's 50% private-equity weight, 3% cap and $10,000 minimum (Bloomberg via investor materials), BXPM's SICAV wrapper (one newsletter), Coutts–KKR fund sizes (Citywire), Partners Group's continuation vehicle (Bloomberg), Blackstone's hybrid CLO and shelved $3bn deal (Bloomberg), Blackstone's ≥$8bn credit fund and 15% IRR (Bloomberg), and Cliffwater's Q3 figures (Bloomberg).
• Redemptions. Q3 fund-letter figures are preliminary. North Haven's Q2 comparison is the preliminary 11.6%; the final Q2 fill implies about 12.0%. BCRED's new-request figure and all fill rates marked as ours are arithmetic.
• BETP V. The $8.5bn final close in September rests on a Louisiana pension document; no Blackstone announcement was found by 28 September.
• California. Bill texts were not retrievable; statutory details rest on the Governor's release and two law-firm summaries. The 25MW cap comes from one firm. New Era's letter-of-credit due date is our count of business days.
• Rates and hedging. FedWatch odds come via CNBC on three dates. The 2.9% yen hedge cost is our calculation from 28 September forward points. The median-borrower coverage figures are our arithmetic on KBRA leverage and Lincoln's scenario spread, holding EBITDA flat.
• Regulation. Diameter's "RNF" structure is not confirmed. The PRA may have published after 25 September. No UK or EU regulator has drawn a read-across from the ASIC case.
• Data gaps. No retrieved source gave a current private credit dry-powder figure or Japanese institutional allocation news this week. Swiss beneficial-ownership and FCA consultation dates carried from edition 005 were not re-confirmed and are left out of the events table.
• Dates outside the week. Some context predates 21 September: the Fed and BoJ hikes (16 and 18 September), Fitch's default data (14 September), several funds' Q3 tender results (3–18 September), Bloomberg's Partners Group and Blackstone credit-fund reports (mid-September), CNBC's report on labs' 20–30MW deals (18 September) and Turkey's liquidation order (17 September). Each is dated where it appears.
• Counter-argument to the lead. Force majeure notices are, in Oracle's words, "commonplace" and preserve rights rather than signal delay. Cloud demand is still rising in absolute terms, with record-low vacancy and a $514bn Google Cloud backlog, which supports the view that only the most price-sensitive layers are exposed. This week's pricing may reflect SoftBank's and Firmus's own credit, not a market-wide repricing by layer. Only the Jupiter loan quote measures a layer directly, and it predates the notice.

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Glossary — Private Credit, Infrastructure & Venture Capital Terms

Terms new this cycle. The full standing glossary is at NL1 Glossary.

• Force Majeure — A contract clause that excuses or delays a party's obligations when events outside its control intervene; in a data-centre lease it can let a tenant defer rent if power or construction is late
• Remaining Performance Obligations (RPO) — Signed contract value a company has not yet booked as revenue; the "backlog" hyperscalers cite to show future demand
• Residual Value Guarantee (RVG) — A promise to cover a shortfall in an asset's value, used by hyperscalers and chipmakers to back data-centre leases
• Neocloud — A specialist company that rents out GPU computing capacity to AI labs and other customers, as distinct from the large hyperscale clouds
• Convertible Loan Notes — Debt that converts into shares on a set event, such as an IPO, giving lenders equity upside
• Mezzanine Debt — A loan that ranks behind senior debt but ahead of equity, with no ownership or voting rights; paid a higher margin for sitting second
• Re-tender — A redemption request resubmitted after an earlier one was only partly filled; at US tender-offer funds, unfilled requests do not roll over automatically
• Hybrid CLO — A collateralised loan obligation that holds both broadly syndicated loans and private credit loans, and can shift between them
• Rated Note Feeder (RNF) — A vehicle that issues rated notes backed by a fund interest, so regulated investors such as insurers can hold the exposure at a lower capital charge
• Target Market Determination / DDO Stop Order — Under Australia's design and distribution obligations, the document stating who a product is for; ASIC can halt sales if it is inadequate
• Soft Default — A default event in which the loan is amended rather than missed: interest deferral, PIK substitution or a distressed maturity extension
• Behind-the-Meter — Power generated on or next to the site that uses it, rather than drawn from the grid
• Rule 506(c) — The US private-offering exemption that allows public marketing, provided every buyer is a verified accredited investor

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Disclaimer: Private Credit & Infrastructure Intelligence is published for general information and education only. It is not investment advice, and it is not an offer, solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold any financial instrument, nor an invitation to engage in any investment activity. Nothing in it takes account of any reader's circumstances, objectives or needs. Figures and sources are believed accurate at the dates shown, but completeness and continuing accuracy are not guaranteed. Take your own professional advice before acting on anything here.