Private credit closes 45% of French deals
A six-point gain turns direct lenders from a niche option into the pricing reference in France.
According to Private Debt Investor's regional guide to the French market, private credit financed 45% of the deals completed in France over the past year, up six percentage points from 39% a year earlier—a single data point, but exactly the evidence the guide's headline advertises: debt funds continue to take market share in France.
The excerpt stops at the share itself, leaving it unclear whether the six points came out of syndicated bank loans, bilateral credit, or some other part of the market, but what the level tells us does not depend on the breakdown. At 39%, private credit still behaved like a selective alternative, called in when sponsors wanted execution certainty or more leverage than the bank market offered; at 45%, it behaves like the relevant standard, and banks are the ones having to explain why a French deal should go down the syndicated route.
The country's biggest and most liquid borrowers will still look to a broadly syndicated market, but the middle of the market, where most of these deals sit, has crossed a line: direct lenders are now the pricing and documentation reference point in that segment, and bank competition is reactive rather than agenda-setting—a shift in negotiating power, not merely market share.
The French figure also has to be read alongside the wider direct-lending reset, since share and volume move separately: a six-point gain can occur in a market that is growing, shrinking, or flat. What the gain does suggest is that managers with established French franchises are winning a larger part of the business that does get done, a source of pricing power independent of the aggregate cycle.
The next regional guide from Private Debt Investor is worth reading for one number: whether 45% becomes a bare majority. If private credit crosses half of French deals, the middle market in France stops being a fight between direct lenders and banks and becomes a fight among direct lenders—competition that typically shows up in price before it shows up in share.
The Wrap