Business development companies lend to midsize private companies at high interest rates. They have proven popular with retail investors in recent years by offering dividend yields of around 10%. Total industry assets have doubled to about $260 billion since late 2020.
Leading BDCs include
Ares Capital
(ticker: ARCC),
Owl Rock Capital
(ORCC),
FS KKR Capital
(FSK), and
Blackstone Secured Lending
(BXSL). The largest BDC is the nontraded
Blackstone
Private Credit fund, known as Bcred, which has grown to $22 billion in net assets since its inception in January 2021, more than twice the size of
Ares
Capital, the largest public BDC.
