Powering private credit’s growth by streamlining capital structure analysis

The growth of the private credit market is one of the stand-out developments of recent years, with the asset class now estimated to be worth $1.7 to $2 trillion. However, this success has not been without its growing pains.

In many cases, the meteoric rise of private credit has left investors scrambling to keep pace. The inherent complexities of the asset class have resulted in some investors struggling to manage highly intensive data, analysis and administration workflows on stitched-together tools and technologies that are not fit for purpose.

At S&P Global Market Intelligence, we are at the forefront of the drive to digitize private credit management, offering a comprehensive platform of solutions aimed at helping credit investors scale their credit analytics, portfolio monitoring, loan administration, and trade settlement and allocation workflows.

At the center of our private credit platform sits iLEVEL Credit, our private markets operating system that helps firms understand trends through surfacing insights into the past, present, and future performance of their private credit portfolio. Through combining AI-powered data collection functionality, a best-in-class analytics engine, and sophisticated portfolio analytics and reporting workflows, today, we deliver scale and insight throughout the private credit investment lifecycle.

New tools for managing risk

As lending structures grow more complex and bespoke, it has become increasingly important for lenders to understand the priority of their loan relative to the broader capitalization structure of its borrower. However, performing this analysis can be very laborious as loans perform and amortize, revolvers ebb and flow, delayed draws are taken, amendments occur, and restructures are completed. Typically, lenders find they must export data, perform the required calculations manually and then re-upload the output. When managed manually, it is a time-consuming and error-prone process, and one that inhibits scale and introduces considerable risk.  

Recognizing the need for a better approach, we have launched Capital Structure Analysis module within iLEVEL Credit. This new capability digitizes the experience of visualizing a borrower’s capital structure, analyzing the associated trends over time and transforming it from a discrete, manual process into an automated, integrated and foundational part of the portfolio monitoring experience.

Key benefits

With the launch of iLEVEL Credit’s Capital Structure Analysis, clients can streamline and scale the end-to-end process of building, maintaining and analyzing a borrower’s full capitalization structure.

• Data exports, uploads and manual calculations are eliminated, saving significant time and effort from the private credit management workflow.

• Calculations are more trustworthy and up to date because they are performed natively within iLEVEL Credit using source-agnostic real-time data (such as loan facility balances, terms and conditions and/or balance sheet detail) sourced directly from the platform database.

• Visualizations are clear, accurate and fit for purpose because they are generated directly from the position-specific data and borrower financials stored in iLEVEL Credit. The Capital Structure Analysis module provides a detailed view of facility terms and conditions that can be aggregated through customized rollups.

• Seamless integration with WSO, our loan administration and agent platform, offers expanded analytics and deeper loan data within the module, including real-time global and client loan balances captured from fundings and paydowns, activity processing, cash reconciliation and income reporting for direct lending, asset-based loans, bank loans, real estate loans, bonds, credit default swaps and SRTs.

• Data can be exported to spreadsheets and business intelligence tools via an OData endpoint to perform bespoke calculations, which can then be exported to dashboards and reports within iLEVEL Credit.

• Capitalization structures can also be embedded into asset dashboards, offering a comprehensive view for each borrower.

Private credit innovations for 2025

The Capital Structure Analysis module launch is part of a wave of innovation that will continue to enhance iLEVEL Credit. We have plans to follow up a strong 2024 that included the launch of the full iLEVEL / WSO integration and a new Covenant Monitoring Service, this year will see the addition of AI-powered ingestion of compliance certificates and enhancements to our calculation engine to support more credit-specific analytics.

Our clients with private credit investments have seen phenomenal growth in recent years, with iLEVEL Credit at the center of their efforts to scale up their operations and embrace that progress sustainably. The release of the Capital Structure Analysis module and other debt-specific features marks a new era for the iLEVEL platform, and one that will help us support the next phase of growth and maturity for this standout asset class.

• Learn more about iLEVEL here.

• Learn more about our integrated Private Credit Solution here.