Hard assets retake the lead as credit fundraising slides 40%

Credit strategies raised $32.4 billion in the first half of 2026. That was 40% less than in the same stretch of 2025. The rest of the market took in $57.4 billion, up 22%. Robert A. Stanger & Company's June Market Pulse, published July 24, counted $89.7 billion of alternative fundraising through June. That total was down 11% from the prior year's $101.0 billion. The entire decline sits in credit; strip credit out and the market grew by a fifth.

The second quarter sharpens the picture. HALO strategies — Stanger's term for hard assets with low obsolescence, meaning real estate and infrastructure — raised $15.0 billion in Q2, a 42% gain over Q2 2025. Credit raised $12.2 billion, down 54%. That put hard assets ahead of credit for the first time since Q1 2023. It also ended twelve consecutive quarters in which credit led.

The hard-asset strength is mostly an infrastructure story. Infrastructure fundraising rose 62% year over year, while real estate rose 9%. The credit weakness is largely a BDC story. Publicly registered and private placement BDCs raised $4.8 billion in Q2, down 69%.

That decline lands just as the semi-liquid credit shelf is under pressure. IFD has reported on BCRED's fourth straight quarterly NAV decline and a growing redemption queue. The Stanger data does not assign a cause. The fundraising drop and the markdowns are moving through the same products advisors hold.

The structure of the market shifted as well. Private placement vehicles raised $20.9 billion in Q2. Publicly registered programs raised $19.6 billion. Private placements' share of total fundraising reached 52%. A year earlier it was 39%. Stanger says that was the first quarter in its data set in which private placements out-raised public programs.

For interval funds and tender-offer funds, that first matters most. These are the registered, semi-liquid alternatives sharing the same advisor allocations as private placements. When private placements out-raise public programs, the interval structure's central promise — periodic liquidity without leaving private markets — moves into a more defensive position.

The data also gives texture to the demand forecasts piling up for the channel. IFD has covered Cerulli Associates' projection that advisor private-capital books will grow by $2 trillion, a forecast centered on interval funds. Stanger's first-half numbers suggest that growth, if it comes, will not look like the last three years. The money is rotating away from the credit strategies that dominated fundraising and toward hard assets.

For RIAs and due-diligence teams, the practical read is a shift in what gets approved. A 69% decline in BDC fundraising makes it harder for credit issuers to hold their place on platform menus. A 42% rise in hard-asset fundraising gives real estate and infrastructure vehicles a stronger case for a first meeting.

Kevin T. Gannon, Stanger's chairman and CEO, framed the half as a quiet rotation. "The first half of 2026 makes clear that investors are reallocating within alternatives rather than retreating from them," he said. "Credit fundraising declined sharply, while hard asset and other non-credit strategies continued to attract capital."

The second half will test whether hard assets hold their lead and whether private placements keep out-raising public programs. Either way, the registered non-traded shelf advisors see today is not the one they saw in January. Twelve quarters of credit leadership ended in the same quarter private placements took their first lead in Stanger's data set. The next two quarters will separate a rotation from a one-off correction.