Priority Income caps its quarterly exit at 2.5%

Priority Income Fund opened its quarterly repurchase on Sept. 18, offering to buy as many as 1,621,557 common shares, about 2.5% of shares outstanding at fiscal year-end and the ceiling its repurchase program allows. Against roughly 63.7 million Class R, RIA and I shares outstanding as of Sept. 18, that is the whole liquidity window for the quarter.

The price will be set from the Oct. 31 NAV per share. The July 31 NAV was $3.15, down from $10.85 in June 2024, a 71% decline AltsWire attributes to elevated defaults and losses in the fund's collateralized loan obligation equity and junior debt tranches. Tenders are due by 4 p.m. ET on Oct. 30 unless the fund extends, with payment promptly after.

If requests exceed the cap — and there is no reason to expect a short queue — the fund repurchases pro rata, with priority to holders of fewer than 100 shares who tender their entire position, the one edge the retail tail gets; everyone else divides 1.62 million shares by however many are asked for. The summer repurchase drew more than 10 million shares against a 1,550,812-share cap, a 15.23% proration that was the lowest in at least two years. If demand runs that deep again, a reasonable inference from last quarter rather than a forecast, the cap covers roughly a sixth of it.

The pattern our Aug. 17 report on the summer buyback tracked as the NAV slid was a quarterly window that fills a fraction of the queue while the asset side does the damage. Priority Income has said it expects to list on the New York Stock Exchange before Dec. 31. In December 2025 it said comparable listed funds' trading levels relative to NAV did not yet justify moving forward, and no public update has followed. Its Series J Term Preferred Stock came off the NYSE in April 2026.

Running the buyback at the maximum size the program permits is the right disposition of a tender that cannot be made larger — a smaller one would strand more holders. But the cap is a number the fund sets, and 2.5% a quarter against a 71% drawdown is queue management rather than a liquidity valve. The repurchase queue stopped being the binding constraint on semi-liquid vehicles some time ago, and the asset calendar is the real clock. For a 2013-vintage fund holding CLO equity and junior debt — $597 million in assets as of June 30, 2025 — that clock is the NAV itself, and it has run the wrong way for two years.

Tenders are due by 4 p.m. ET on Oct. 30 and paid promptly after; on the summer's numbers a tender is a request the fund scales back rather than honors. Nine months after deciding a listing wasn't justified, and five after its preferred shares left the NYSE, the promised NYSE move is the one exit the fund has announced that isn't sized at 2.5%.