At the Center of the Private Credit Storm, Blue Owl Restricts Fund Redemptions Again

July 2 News: For the second consecutive quarter, two private credit funds under Blue Owl Capital Inc. faced the largest redemption requests in the industry, forcing the company to once again limit investor redemptions. According to an investor letter from Blue Owl on Thursday, its approximately $34 billion Blue Owl Credit Income Corp. (one of the largest private credit funds in the industry, referred to as OCIC) saw redemption requests in the second quarter amounting to 18.8% of the fund's total shares, equivalent to about $3.6 billion. This figure is lower than the $4.2 billion in redemption requests from the previous quarter. The smaller Blue Owl Technology Income Corp. received redemption requests in the second quarter amounting to 38.1% of the fund's total shares, equivalent to about $1.1 billion, compared to $1.2 billion in redemption requests in the first quarter. Blue Owl has been at the center of the storm sweeping through the $1.8 trillion private credit market. As investors accelerate withdrawals, the company, like its peers Apollo Global Management, Ares Management Corporation, BlackRock, and Blackstone, has implemented redemption restriction mechanisms. However, Blue Owl stated in the letter, "We are encouraged that the redemption request amount for OCIC this quarter has slightly decreased compared to the previous quarter, and this improvement is reflected across different sales channels and regions."