Top 30 Structured Credit & Capital Markets 2026

This report forms part of the Capital Ranking Private Credit series, which evaluates specialist private credit managers, alternative credit platforms, structured credit firms, asset-backed finance specialists, and non-bank capital-markets participants operating across private debt, securitized credit, CLO management, asset finance, and institutional credit markets.

Structured credit connects pools of loans and receivables with institutional investors seeking defined combinations of seniority, yield, duration, liquidity, and collateral exposure. Its instruments include collateralized loan obligations, asset-backed securities, residential and commercial mortgage-backed securities, credit-risk-transfer transactions, warehouse facilities, portfolio financings, and privately structured asset-backed investments.

The field requires a different analytical discipline from conventional corporate direct lending. Managers must understand not only the borrower but also the collateral pool, servicing arrangements, documentation, cash-flow waterfall, structural protections, tranche attachment points, rating assumptions, reinvestment rules, prepayment behavior, recovery timing, and secondary-market liquidity. A strong platform therefore combines fundamental credit research with quantitative surveillance, legal and structural analysis, capital-markets execution, and portfolio-level risk control.

This ranking identifies investment managers whose structured-credit or asset-backed capability is institutionally significant. It recognizes both diversified global credit organizations and specialist firms, provided that the relevant business represents an active and substantive investment franchise. The assessment is not a league table based solely on CLO issuance, assets under management, or one year of investment performance.

Market Overview

Structured credit is one of the principal bridges between private origination and public capital markets. Corporate CLOs finance diversified pools of broadly syndicated or middle-market loans. ABS transactions fund consumer receivables, equipment leases, aircraft, data infrastructure, trade finance, litigation claims, and other contractual cash flows. RMBS and CMBS distribute residential and commercial mortgage risk, while synthetic risk transfers allow banks to manage regulatory capital without necessarily selling the underlying loans.

The category has expanded as lending activity has moved beyond traditional bank balance sheets. Private credit managers increasingly originate assets that can be financed through warehouses, fund-level leverage, rated feeders, securitizations, or CLOs. This convergence gives large platforms an advantage when they can source collateral directly, analyze it at the asset level, structure financing, and retain exposure across different parts of the capital stack.

Scale is useful but not sufficient. Large organizations can maintain global research teams, financing relationships, internal data, and repeat issuance programs. Specialist managers may nevertheless possess deeper expertise in a particular collateral type, geography, or segment of the capital structure. Mortgage credit, European ABS, CLO equity, specialty-finance receivables, and esoteric asset-backed lending each require knowledge that cannot be reduced to generic corporate-credit underwriting.

The underlying structures also create distinct risks. Senior ratings do not eliminate exposure to model error, collateral deterioration, documentation weaknesses, servicer disruption, market-value volatility, or extension risk. Lower-rated and equity tranches may be particularly sensitive to defaults, recoveries, financing costs, and cash-flow diversion tests. The strongest managers therefore demonstrate discipline across origination, asset selection, surveillance, liability management, and stress testing.

The term “capital markets” in this ranking refers to investment platforms that manage or deploy capital through structured-credit markets. Investment banks, rating agencies, trustees, law firms, data vendors, and securitization advisers were excluded because they arrange, rate, administer, or support transactions rather than operate the investment-management franchise being evaluated.

Industry Trend — 2026

Structured-credit activity entered 2026 with high issuance expectations and a more mature risk environment. KBRA projected U.S. broadly syndicated and middle-market CLO issuance of approximately $220 billion for the year. Actual first-quarter U.S. BSL CLO issuance reached about $40 billion, approximately 12% above the comparable 2025 period, while European BSL CLO issuance totaled roughly €15 billion and was about 12% lower year on year.

Spreads remained relatively stable during the early part of the year. Average new-issue U.S. BSL CLO AAA spreads were generally observed between 115 and 131 basis points. This supported continued formation, refinancing, and reset activity, but tight liability pricing did not remove the need for careful collateral selection. Middle-market default measures showed a mixed picture: the count-based rate declined from its recent peak, while the value-based measure increased, indicating that the size and concentration of credit events remained important.

Asset-backed finance continued to draw capital because it offers exposure to contractual cash flows outside sponsor-backed corporate lending. Managers expanded in consumer, equipment, aviation, infrastructure, fund finance, digital assets, and other specialty-finance sectors. The opportunity is large, but comparison across collateral types is difficult: underwriting an aircraft lease, recurring-revenue loan, residential mortgage, or data-center receivable requires different information, legal protections, and recovery assumptions.

Commercial real estate securitization also accelerated. By 21 July, combined U.S. private-label CMBS and CRE CLO issuance had reached approximately $101.1 billion, 19% above the same period of 2025. The growth occurred alongside materially different property fundamentals across multifamily, industrial, lodging, retail, and office assets. Issuance volume therefore should not be confused with uniform collateral quality.

Platform consolidation continued to reshape the manager universe. BlackRock completed its acquisition of HPS in 2025 while preserving HPS-branded flagship strategies and combining public and private CLO capabilities within Private Financing Solutions. Redding Ridge expanded through its acquisition of Irradiant. On 1 July 2026, CVC completed its acquisition of Marathon, creating CVC Marathon alongside the existing CVC Credit platform. These combinations illustrate why ownership is not a reliable proxy for the quality or continuity of an investment franchise.

Artificial-intelligence exposure became a more explicit surveillance issue. Recurring-revenue and software-related loan structures require investors to assess renewal behavior, technological substitution, borrower concentration, and the timing through which disruption may affect cash flows. More broadly, the rapid financing of data centers and computing infrastructure is creating new collateral pools while also increasing the importance of power availability, residual value, customer concentration, and obsolescence analysis.

2026 market indicator	Current evidence	Implication for structured-credit managers
U.S. BSL CLO issuance	Approximately $40 billion in Q1 2026, about 12% above Q1 2025	Formation remained active, supporting managers with repeat issuance and warehouse capacity
European BSL CLO issuance	Approximately €15 billion in Q1 2026, about 12% below Q1 2025	European managers faced tighter arbitrage and a more selective new-issue environment
U.S. CLO outlook	KBRA projected approximately $220 billion of 2026 BSL and middle-market CLO issuance	Scale is increasing, but manager comparison still requires collateral and structure-level analysis
AAA CLO spreads	Average U.S. BSL new-issue levels were largely range-bound between 115 and 131 basis points in early 2026	Stable liabilities supported issuance while leaving asset selection and refinancing discipline central
Middle-market defaults	Q1 count-based defaults were 3.1%, while the value-based measure increased to 2.2%	Headline default counts can understate the effect of larger or more concentrated credit events
CRE securitization	Private-label CMBS and CRE CLO issuance reached $101.1 billion by 21 July, up 19% year on year	Higher volume increases opportunity but requires close attention to property type, business plan, and refinancing risk
Platform scale	Blackstone disclosed $547 billion across credit and real-estate debt; Carlyle reported $209 billion in global credit	Large platforms can combine origination, liquid credit, asset-backed finance, and insurance capital
Consolidation	HPS operates within BlackRock, Redding Ridge absorbed Irradiant, and CVC completed the Marathon acquisition	Assessment must distinguish ownership changes from the continuity of active teams, strategies, and brands

Methodology — Core Eligibility Criteria

Firms considered for this ranking were required to satisfy the following core conditions:

• Operate an active investment-management or capital-deployment platform with structured credit as a material capability
• Manage or invest in CLOs, leveraged-loan portfolios, ABS, RMBS, CMBS, asset-backed finance, specialty finance, credit-risk transfer, structured private credit, or closely related instruments
• Maintain substantive expertise in collateral underwriting, portfolio construction, documentation, cash-flow structures, tranche risk, surveillance, or liability management
• Demonstrate institutional operating capability through research, risk, legal, finance, trading, capital-markets, and portfolio-management resources appropriate to the strategies offered
• Possess sufficient scale, longevity, specialist authority, market activity, or strategic distinctiveness to justify inclusion
• Remain active during the 2026 evaluation period

Universal banks, broker-dealers, rating agencies, securitization advisers, trustees, administrators, law firms, and technology providers were excluded. Direct lenders and broad alternative managers remained eligible only where structured credit, CLO management, securitized products, or asset-backed finance constituted a distinct and material capability.

Methodology — Ranking Factors

The selected firms were evaluated using a combination of qualitative and structural factors:

• Depth and continuity of the structured-credit, CLO, or asset-backed investment franchise
• Capability across collateral sourcing, underwriting, structuring, warehousing, financing, and portfolio management
• Experience with cash-flow waterfalls, documentation, coverage tests, rating methodologies, and liability management
• Breadth across corporate CLOs, ABS, mortgage credit, specialty finance, and private asset-backed strategies
• Quality of fundamental research, loan-level analytics, collateral surveillance, stress testing, and risk governance
• Experience through credit cycles, liquidity disruptions, refinancing waves, and collateral-specific stress
• Institutional scale, investor relevance, product range, and capacity to support complex mandates
• Repeat issuance, capital-markets relationships, and ability to execute refinancings, resets, or securitizations
• Geographic reach across North America, Europe, and other relevant structured-credit markets
• Strategic differentiation through collateral expertise, technology, data, origination, or capital flexibility
• Current organizational momentum and continued investment in the platform during the 2026 assessment period
• Contribution to the institutional development of CLO, ABS, mortgage, or asset-backed finance markets

The assessment universe comprised approximately 95 structured-credit managers, CLO platforms, securitized-products investors, asset-backed finance specialists, and diversified credit organizations. Thirty firms were selected.

Tier classifications reflect relative institutional positioning within the structured-credit and capital-markets investment ecosystem. They do not constitute an investment recommendation, fund-performance ranking, due-diligence conclusion, credit rating, or endorsement of any manager, product, transaction, tranche, or security.

Company Profiles and Further Reference

Firm names appearing in this ranking are linked to their corresponding profiles in The Economy Wiki for companies, where available. These profiles provide additional background on each organization, including its principal activities, sector focus, market positioning, leadership, corporate information, and related rankings and analysis across The Economy Network.

The Economy Wiki profiles are maintained as editorial reference pages and may be updated as new public information becomes available.

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Tier I — Leading Structured Credit & Capital Markets Platforms

Ares Management

• Headquarters: Los Angeles, United States
• Founded: 1997

Ares Management operates one of the world’s largest alternative-credit platforms, spanning direct lending, liquid credit, alternative credit, asset-based finance, real estate debt, and CLO management. Its overall platform reported approximately $644 billion in assets under management at the end of March 2026, with credit representing the majority of the business.

The firm’s structured-credit authority comes from its ability to connect origination with capital-markets execution. It manages leveraged-loan portfolios and CLOs while also investing across asset-backed, fund finance, specialty finance, and other collateralized strategies. Sector research, sponsor relationships, financing capability, and scale across public and private credit give Ares a wide view of borrower fundamentals and market technicals.

Ares fits Tier I because structured credit is embedded in a broad, globally significant credit organization rather than treated as a peripheral product. Its institutional reach, CLO experience, origination network, and ability to deploy capital across the liquidity spectrum make it one of the category’s principal reference platforms.

Blackstone Credit & Insurance

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 1998

Blackstone Credit & Insurance is one of the largest credit-management organizations globally. As of June 2026, Blackstone disclosed approximately $547 billion across its credit and real-estate debt businesses, with capabilities spanning private corporate credit, liquid corporate credit, infrastructure and asset-based credit, residential mortgages, and commercial real estate debt.

Its structured-credit relevance is unusually broad. Blackstone describes itself as the largest global loan manager and invests in leveraged loans, CLO debt and equity, asset-based lending, mortgage assets, and privately structured transactions. The platform can draw on a large borrower and sponsor network while matching investments with institutional, insurance, and private-wealth capital.

Blackstone fits Tier I because its scale affects both the supply and demand sides of credit markets. The firm can originate or acquire collateral, structure capital solutions, manage liquid portfolios, and allocate across public and private instruments. Its breadth makes it a defining institutional platform even though structured credit represents only one part of a much larger organization.

Carlyle

• Headquarters: Washington, D.C., United States
• Founded: 1987

Carlyle maintains a global credit platform covering liquid credit, structured credit, asset-backed finance, aviation finance, real estate credit, direct lending, and opportunistic capital. In March 2026, the firm reported approximately $209 billion in global credit assets, including $47.7 billion in liquid credit and $11.8 billion in asset-backed finance.

Carlyle’s structured-credit franchise combines management of broadly syndicated loan CLOs with investment in CLO debt and equity tranches. Its asset-backed business originates or acquires exposures supported by diversified pools of contractual cash flows, while its aviation and real-estate businesses extend the platform into collateral-intensive markets requiring specialized servicing and asset knowledge.

Carlyle fits Tier I because it operates across several of the most important boundaries in modern credit: public and private, corporate and asset-backed, liquid and illiquid, and origination and securitization. Its scale, European and North American presence, CLO history, and real-assets expertise make it one of the most complete structured-credit platforms in the ranking.

GoldenTree Asset Management

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2000

GoldenTree Asset Management is an employee-owned global credit manager with approximately $70 billion in assets and strategies across leveraged loans, high yield, private credit, distressed debt, structured credit, emerging markets, and real estate. Its structured-credit activity includes both management of CLOs and investment in third-party structured products.

In June 2026, GoldenTree closed its thirtieth CLO under the GLM strategy, a $726 million transaction. The firm reported that it had issued 39 CLOs totaling nearly $22 billion through that strategy, more than $31 billion of CLOs and CBOs since inception, and over $9 billion of structured-credit investments across the wider firm.

GoldenTree fits Tier I because it combines the technical specialization of a credit-focused manager with the scale and market access of a global platform. Its repeat issuance, substantial structured-credit portfolio, cross-cycle experience, and research depth give it authority across both corporate loan collateral and structured-credit relative value.

Waterfall Asset Management

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2005

Waterfall Asset Management is a specialist in asset-backed finance and structured credit. The firm invests across structured-credit securities, whole loans, loan portfolios, and privately negotiated asset-backed opportunities, covering more than 60 sectors across consumer, commercial, residential, and specialty-finance markets.

Waterfall’s approximately $12.1 billion platform is smaller than those of the other Tier I firms, but its category purity is exceptional. Its investment process centers on asset-level underwriting, cash-flow behavior, servicing, documentation, collateral valuation, and financing structures. This gives it a different analytical identity from managers whose structured-credit activity is concentrated primarily in corporate CLOs.

Waterfall fits Tier I because institutional importance in this category is not reducible to total assets. The firm is one of the clearest dedicated expressions of the convergence between securitized products and private asset-backed finance. Its specialist expertise, broad collateral coverage, and long operating history make it a defining platform for the asset-backed side of structured credit.

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Tier II — Established Structured Credit & Capital Markets Firms

(Alphabetical order)

Anchorage Capital Advisors

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2022, succeeding a platform established in 2003

Anchorage Capital Advisors is the successor organization to Anchorage Capital Group and reported approximately $27.8 billion in assets at the end of March 2026. Its strategies span performing credit, structured credit, customized mandates, distressed debt, and special situations in the United States and Europe.

The firm describes itself as an experienced U.S. and European CLO and CDO manager as well as a secondary structured-credit investor. Its combination of fundamental research, active trading, restructuring knowledge, and structured-product experience gives it relevance across both performing and dislocated markets.

Anchorage fits Tier II because the current organization is active, scaled, and directly engaged in structured credit. The successor structure is stated explicitly because the 2022 organization should not be confused with the earlier flagship-fund wind-down.

CIFC Asset Management

• Headquarters: Miami, United States
• Founded: 2005

CIFC Asset Management is a specialist corporate-credit manager with approximately $44.6 billion in regulatory assets reported in its 2026 filing. Its strategies include senior secured loans, CLOs, direct lending, high yield, opportunistic credit, and investments in structured-credit tranches.

CIFC’s core strength is the integration of borrower-level research with CLO portfolio construction and surveillance. The firm manages loan collateral, issues structured vehicles, and invests across different parts of the CLO capital stack. Its scale is substantial, but its investment identity remains more focused than that of the diversified Tier I organizations.

CIFC fits Tier II because it is one of the largest and most recognizable specialist CLO platforms. Its category depth, long operating history, and institutional client base place it near the top of the established tier.

CVC Credit

• Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
• Founded: 2006

CVC Credit is the dedicated credit arm of CVC and managed approximately €52 billion as of June 2026. It invests across European and North American sub-investment-grade markets through liquid-credit and private-credit strategies, including CLOs, managed funds, separate accounts, and other structured vehicles.

The firm maintains one of Europe’s most important CLO franchises while drawing on a proprietary database covering thousands of corporate credits and the wider CVC network. Its platform combines leveraged-loan analysis, capital-markets execution, private-credit sourcing, and cross-border investor relationships.

CVC Credit fits Tier II because of its European authority, current scale, and repeat issuance capability. CVC’s July 2026 acquisition of Marathon created CVC Marathon, but Marathon is not ranked separately because the combination now operates within the same wider credit organization.

Ellington Management Group

• Headquarters: Old Greenwich, United States
• Founded: 1994

Ellington Management Group is a long-established specialist in mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities, consumer credit, residential and commercial mortgage assets, and other complex fixed-income strategies. Its approach is closely associated with loan-level analytics, quantitative modelling, collateral surveillance, and market-technical analysis.

The firm provides important balance to a ranking that could otherwise become dominated by corporate CLO managers. Mortgage and consumer collateral introduce prepayment, servicing, housing, geographic, recovery, and financing risks that require a different analytical infrastructure from leveraged-loan portfolios.

Ellington fits Tier II because of its longevity and deep securitized-products identity. Its experience across multiple mortgage and structured-credit cycles gives it specialist authority well beyond the size of any single fund or transaction.

Golub Capital

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 1994

Golub Capital is a major middle-market credit platform with substantial direct-lending, broadly syndicated loan, and CLO capabilities. Its structured-credit importance is particularly strong in middle-market CLOs, where the collateral consists of privately originated loans and requires detailed knowledge of borrowers, sponsors, documentation, and portfolio concentration.

The firm’s origination engine gives it access to proprietary collateral, while its long relationships with private equity sponsors support underwriting and monitoring. This creates a close connection between private lending and securitization: the manager can originate assets, retain knowledge of the borrowers, and finance diversified portfolios through structured vehicles.

Golub fits Tier II because it is a defining institution in the middle-market CLO segment. Its broader identity remains centered on direct lending, but the scale and strategic importance of its structured-credit activity make inclusion essential.

LibreMax Capital

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2010

LibreMax Capital specializes in securitized products, structured credit, and asset-based investment strategies. Its platform analyzes collateral pools, financing structures, relative value, and market dislocations across sectors where asset behavior and structural protections are more important than conventional corporate leverage ratios alone.

The firm’s category fit is unusually direct. It invests across mortgage, consumer, commercial, and other asset-backed markets while combining securities trading with private asset-based opportunities. This allows it to move between public and privately negotiated credit as valuations and financing conditions change.

LibreMax fits Tier II because structured credit is central to its investment identity. Its focused research architecture and institutional market presence make it one of the strongest specialist counterweights to the much larger diversified platforms.

Oak Hill Advisors

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 1991

Oak Hill Advisors is a global credit manager operating across leveraged loans, high yield, private credit, structured products, distressed debt, and real-asset credit. Now part of T. Rowe Price, OHA retains a distinct investment platform and reported more than $110 billion in assets during 2026.

OHA has managed CLOs since 2001 and has issued tens of billions of dollars across the strategy. Its platform combines fundamental loan research, in-house structuring, portfolio management, compliance, and experience investing in both internally managed and third-party CLOs.

OHA fits Tier II because of its scale, longevity, and multi-cycle credit capability. Parent ownership does not diminish an active franchise with a separate team, market identity, and long record in CLO management and structured products.

Palmer Square Capital Management

• Headquarters: Mission Woods, United States
• Founded: 2009

Palmer Square Capital Management is a specialist in corporate and structured credit, managing CLOs, registered funds, exchange-traded funds, separate accounts, and private partnerships. The firm estimated approximately $36.9 billion in assets at the end of May 2026.

Palmer Square operates on both sides of the CLO market: it manages loan portfolios and also constructs investment products focused on CLO debt and related credit instruments. Its published U.S. and European CLO indices have contributed to market transparency and provided reference points for a segment historically dominated by private pricing and institutional data.

Palmer Square fits Tier II because it combines focused structured-credit expertise with unusually broad product accessibility. Its rapid growth, index infrastructure, and continuing CLO activity give it a strong institutional position.

Sound Point Capital Management

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2008

Sound Point Capital Management is an alternative-credit firm active across CLOs, leveraged loans, structured credit, direct lending, opportunistic credit, and special situations. Its platform has expanded through organic issuance and the integration of acquired credit capabilities.

The firm’s structured-credit strength lies in managing diversified loan portfolios while maintaining borrower-level research, active trading, portfolio surveillance, and liability-management expertise. Its broader credit business allows the team to evaluate loans and tranches in the context of high-yield markets, sponsor activity, defaults, and refinancing conditions.

Sound Point fits Tier II because it is one of the most important scaled CLO specialists outside the largest global platforms. Its repeat market presence and focused credit identity make it a central participant in the category.

Värde Partners

• Headquarters: Minneapolis, United States
• Founded: 1993

Värde Partners is a global credit investor with strategies across asset-based finance, real estate, corporate credit, and Asia private credit. The firm reported approximately $15 billion in assets and more than $110 billion invested since inception.

Its structured-credit relevance was reinforced in May 2026 by the closing of a $1 billion managed CRE CLO, its largest transaction of that type and thirteenth commercial-real-estate securitization. The deal was backed by loans originated through Värde’s own lending platform, illustrating the connection between origination, asset management, and capital-markets financing.

Värde fits Tier II because it combines multi-cycle opportunistic-credit experience with substantive asset-backed and real-estate securitization capability. Its geographic reach and ability to work across public and private markets broaden the established tier.

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Tier III — Specialist Structured Credit & Capital Markets Firms

(Alphabetical order)

AGL Credit Management

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2019

AGL Credit Management is a corporate-credit specialist focused on floating-rate senior secured loans through CLOs and other institutional structures. The firm reported approximately $24.6 billion in assets at the end of 2025, demonstrating rapid scale since its 2019 launch.

AGL fits Tier III because its platform is newer than those of the established firms, but its scale, loan-selection framework, and CLO-centered investment model already make it a significant specialist participant.

Axonic Capital

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2010

Axonic Capital invests across structured credit, mortgage credit, commercial real estate debt, and related fixed-income markets. Its approach emphasizes collateral analysis, market structure, relative value, and risk management across public and privately negotiated opportunities.

Axonic fits Tier III because structured credit is central to its identity. Its focused platform adds specialist mortgage and asset-backed depth below the larger securitized-products managers.

Barings

• Headquarters: Charlotte, United States
• Founded: 1762

Barings is a global asset manager with capabilities across corporate credit, structured credit, real estate debt, private finance, and capital markets. Its 2026 institutional mandates included substantial allocations to commercial mortgage-backed securities and real-estate lending.

Barings fits Tier III because its overall scale is very large, but structured credit is one capability within a broad insurance-owned organization. Its CLO, CMBS, and asset-backed expertise nevertheless provide important institutional depth.

Beach Point Capital Management

• Headquarters: Santa Monica, United States
• Founded: 2009

Beach Point Capital Management invests across performing credit, opportunistic credit, structured credit, asset-based finance, private credit, and distressed situations. The firm combines fundamental borrower analysis with the flexibility to allocate across securities and privately structured assets.

Beach Point fits Tier III because its structured-credit capability is meaningful but forms part of a broader opportunistic-credit mandate. Its employee-owned platform and cross-market experience strengthen the specialist tier.

Chenavari Investment Managers

• Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
• Founded: 2008

Chenavari Investment Managers is an employee-owned European alternative fixed-income specialist. Its strategies span asset-backed securities, corporate and financial credit, leveraged finance, private credit, specialty-finance origination, CLOs, and bespoke accounts.

Chenavari fits Tier III because it provides direct European ABS and specialty-finance expertise. Its ability to invest across liquid securities and private origination gives the ranking geographic and strategic breadth.

Diameter Capital Partners

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2017

Diameter Capital Partners is a global credit manager investing across public and private markets through performing, stressed, dislocated, and structured opportunities. Its platform combines fundamental research, trading, capital-structure analysis, and risk management.

Diameter fits Tier III because it is a younger and broader credit firm rather than a dedicated CLO or ABS manager. Its growth and market relevance nevertheless make it an important contemporary specialist.

Fair Oaks Capital

• Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
• Founded: 2013

Fair Oaks Capital is an independent credit manager and adviser operating from London and New York. Its activities include investing in CLO debt and equity, managing European CLOs, and offering funds designed around structured-credit income and relative value.

Fair Oaks fits Tier III because of its focused CLO identity and active European issuance. Its smaller scale is offset by category purity and the ability to operate as both investor and collateral manager.

HPS, a Part of BlackRock

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2007

HPS is a global credit platform active across privately negotiated senior and junior capital, liquid credit, CLOs, asset-based finance, and real estate. BlackRock completed its acquisition in 2025 and preserved the HPS branding for its flagship strategies within Private Financing Solutions.

HPS fits Tier III in this category because its greatest authority lies in broad private financing rather than structured credit alone. Its retained brand, CLO capabilities, and asset-backed reach nonetheless make it institutionally significant.

Medalist Partners

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2018

Medalist Partners specializes in asset-based private credit and structured credit across residential and commercial real estate, consumer and commercial assets, equipment, aircraft, leases, and other collateral pools. The firm invests through private funds, registered vehicles, and separate accounts.

Medalist fits Tier III because it is a focused but comparatively young platform. Its asset-level specialization and continued investment in structured-credit leadership make it a strong representative of the growing private asset-backed market.

Octagon Credit Investors

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 1994

Octagon Credit Investors manages broadly syndicated loans, high-yield bonds, structured credit, multi-asset credit, and direct lending strategies. It reported approximately $31.6 billion in assets in April 2026 and retains an identifiable investment platform within Conning and Generali Investments.

Octagon fits Tier III because its long CLO history and current scale are substantial, while its parent structure and broader liquid-credit mandate position it below the established standalone platforms in this category.

Redding Ridge Asset Management

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 2016

Redding Ridge Asset Management was established and seeded by Apollo to manage CLOs, hold risk-retention investments, and support structured-finance execution. Its platform spans U.S. and European CLO management, CLO investing, ABS, manager partnerships, and capital-markets advisory capability.

Redding Ridge fits Tier III because its institutional resources and CLO scale are significant, but its close operational and research relationship with Apollo distinguishes it from independently organized managers. Its acquisition of Irradiant added further loan and CLO capabilities.

Semper Capital Management

• Headquarters: New York, United States
• Founded: 1992

Semper Capital Management is an investment manager focused on mortgage-backed securities, asset-backed securities, asset-based lending, and other structured-credit investments. Its specialization centers on collateral behavior, prepayments, servicing, housing, and securitization structure.

Semper fits Tier III because it is smaller and more focused than the established securitized-products managers. Its long history and mortgage-credit expertise add differentiated collateral coverage.

Trinitas Capital Management

• Headquarters: Dallas, United States
• Founded: 2015

Trinitas Capital Management focuses on senior secured loans, CLO issuance, and separate-account strategies. Its team combines loan research, portfolio management, trading, structuring, and compliance across diversified corporate collateral pools.

Trinitas fits Tier III because it is a focused CLO manager with a shorter operating history and narrower product set. Its continuing issuance in 2026 confirms an active and traceable specialist franchise.

TwentyFour Asset Management

• Headquarters: London, United Kingdom
• Founded: 2008

TwentyFour Asset Management is a fixed-income specialist and a boutique of Vontobel. It manages approximately $32 billion across asset-backed securities, asset-backed finance, multi-sector credit, and other active bond strategies.

TwentyFour fits Tier III because it provides strong European ABS and public structured-credit expertise, while its broader fixed-income identity and parent ownership place it below the dedicated Tier II structured-credit firms.

ZAIS Group

• Headquarters: Holmdel, United States
• Founded: 1997

ZAIS Group is a specialist credit manager with a long history in structured credit, mortgage assets, corporate credit, and related fixed-income strategies. Its platform has operated across investment funds, separate accounts, and structured vehicles through multiple credit cycles.

ZAIS fits Tier III because its present public scale is more limited than that of the leading platforms, but its structured-credit lineage and experience in mortgage and collateralized markets remain relevant to the category.

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Remarks

Structured credit should not be treated as a single homogeneous strategy. Corporate CLO management begins with leveraged-loan research and portfolio construction. Mortgage investing depends heavily on borrower behavior, prepayments, servicing, property values, and legal structure. Specialty-finance and asset-backed lending require collateral-specific underwriting, operational diligence, and recovery analysis. Investors should therefore compare managers at the strategy and vehicle level rather than infer equivalent capabilities from a broad “structured credit” label.

The 2026 ranking recognizes different forms of authority. Tier I combines the largest global credit organizations with Waterfall’s defining specialist role in asset-backed finance. Tier II contains scaled CLO managers, securitized-products specialists, and credit platforms with established institutional franchises. Tier III adds focused managers, European specialists, active parent-owned platforms, and newer firms that broaden the ranking across collateral types and market structures.

Ownership is not used as a substitute for investment analysis. Oak Hill Advisors, Octagon, TwentyFour, HPS, and Redding Ridge remain eligible because each maintains an active and identifiable investment capability. Conversely, acquired names are not automatically ranked separately when the original platform has been fully absorbed or no longer represents a distinct current franchise.

CVC-Marathon is treated within the wider CVC organization following completion of the acquisition on 1 July 2026. Anchorage is presented through Anchorage Capital Advisors, the active successor formed in 2022, rather than as an unchanged continuation of the former Anchorage Capital Group structure.

Tier placement reflects relative institutional positioning within the structured-credit and capital-markets investment ecosystem. It does not constitute an investment recommendation, credit opinion, or assessment of future performance. Allocators should independently evaluate collateral, leverage, liquidity, documentation, valuation, governance, fees, financing arrangements, conflicts, and portfolio fit.

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Recognition

Inclusion in the Top 30 Structured Credit & Capital Markets 2026 ranking is an editorial determination of The Economy Rankings and is independent of licensing, advertising, sponsorship, or other commercial participation.

Ranked organizations may factually refer to their inclusion in the ranking in their own communications. When describing the result, firms should accurately reflect the tier structure and methodology used in the published ranking.

How the ranking should be interpreted

• Tier I represents the Top 5 firms, and the published order within Tier I reflects the ranking order.
• Tier II represents firms ranked within the Top 15, following Tier I. Firms within Tier II are displayed alphabetically; their displayed order should therefore not be interpreted as an individual numerical ranking.
• Tier III represents firms ranked within the Top 30, following Tiers I and II. Firms within Tier III are also displayed alphabetically, and their displayed order should not be interpreted as an individual numerical ranking.
• A firm's tier, rather than its alphabetical position within Tier II or Tier III, should therefore be used when describing its standing.

Referencing the ranking

Depending on the firm's published tier, appropriate factual descriptions may include:

• Tier I: “Ranked Tier I” or “Ranked among the Top 5”
• Tier II: “Ranked Tier II” or “Ranked among the Top 15”
• Tier III: “Ranked Tier III” or “Ranked among the Top 30”

Firms should not describe an alphabetical position within Tier II or Tier III as a specific numerical rank.

Use of The Economy Rankings recognition materials

Editorial inclusion in a ranking does NOT by itself grant permission to use The Economy Rankings badges, seals, logos, official recognition graphics, licensed quotations, or other proprietary recognition materials.

Organizations wishing to use official The Economy Rankings recognition materials in corporate websites, marketing materials, investor communications, client presentations, social media, press releases, or other external communications should refer to the applicable licensing terms and usage policies:

• The Economy Rankings License Structure — available licence levels and permitted recognition uses
  Rankings License Structure | The Economy
• The Economy Rankings License Policy — licensing conditions governing use of The Economy Rankings recognition, marks, and related materials
  The Economy Rankings License Policy | The Economy
• Recognition Use Guide — guidance on permitted wording, presentation, attribution, and use of ranking recognition
  Recognition Use Guide | The Economy

Ranking inclusion remains editorially independent regardless of whether an organization purchases or holds a recognition-materials licence.

Recognized institutions may reference the designation in:

• corporate websites
• investor communications
• marketing materials
• client presentations

Licensing inquiries:
[email protected]