Private Credit ‘Tradable’ Platform Shows Direct Loans Are Moving

3nbc2x9)6e}klxq8h8onlkk3_media_dl_1.png via Bloomberg

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(Bloomberg) — Alex Cordover has a unique vantage point into how direct lenders are navigating a sustained bout of redemption pressure.

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From his perch in Chicago, the chief executive officer of private credit platform Tradable says he sees evidence the industry’s biggest players are still hungry for loans on the secondary market. Sellers are most likely to be middle-market and lower-middle-market firms that are looking for partners to scale or can’t afford to stay in a deal, he said in an interview.

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Perhaps most strikingly: Tradable launched twice the amount of volume in the first four months of 2026 as all of last year — some 14 deals totaling $646 million. That’s been a boon for the firm, a joint venture between Victory Park Capital Advisors and incubator Spring Labs. It was formed in 2022 with an eye toward profiting from what was once considered unthinkable for the $1.8 trillion market: syndication.

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To be sure, Tradable isn’t exactly how some credit veterans see direct loans converging with public markets. Key to its platform is technology to “tokenize” ownership interests in deals. The digital tokens then represent stakes that can be transferred among eligible investors.

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Trading of all kinds remains nascent in private credit and has many hurdles, including in some cases requiring borrowers to sign off on any exchange. But the ability to shift in and out of loans has taken on a new urgency this year as funds face elevated withdrawal requests. For now they’ve largely enforced 5% limits, but that’s created a backlog that could take several months, or even years, to fully clear. 

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“Because of all the redemption pressures, you have seen more trading,” Cordover said. “Before, managers were aligning asset lifetimes with fund lifetimes, but the democratization of private assets, evergreen structures and other structurally liquid vehicles that require quarterly liquidity has created new needs.”

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To Cordover, trading in private credit tended to be among managers that stood to mutually benefit from stable prices — tantamount to what he calls “valuation laundering.” He said that’s ripe for change after recent volatility.

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Indeed, the industry has historically tended to meet attempts at creating more liquidity with hostility, preferring to handling exchanges in small clubs. When the market was hot last year, JPMorgan Chase & Co. traders would offer to buy dozens of loans, but, on most occasions, fail to get their hands on a single one, Bloomberg previously reported.

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Things are a bit different these days.

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Ed Goldstein, chief investment officer of Coller Credit Secondaries at Coller Capital, estimates that secondary private credit trading — more of the traditional variety than Tradable — has roughly doubled on an annual basis for the past two years. He called the move structural, not cyclical, as the market becomes a “natural release valve” for elevated outflows.