Blue Owl Capital (NYSE:OWL) is holding early-stage talks with investors about launching a credit secondaries strategy, according to Bloomberg News.

CEO Marc Lipschultz described credit secondaries during an August 2025 analyst call as "a great business to be had.” He also warned the market was creating "this sense that people are just picking up free money, and almost a mania."

Private market secondaries involve investors selling stakes in private funds or companies to other investors before an exit event, according to a recent JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) report.

PitchBook data show that global transaction volumes for secondaries hitting a record $226 billion in 2025. That’s up 41% from 2024.

"The secondaries world has expanded exponentially over the past three years," said Montserrat Serra-Janer, global head of Private Markets Sales (Securities Services and Prime Finance Sales) at J.P. Morgan. "We've seen huge growth, and we're also seeing increased interest in our secondaries intermediation capabilities from both clients and prospects."

Blue Owl has been under recent scrutiny lately. Last month, the firm capped redemptions in both its funds at 5% after investors requested withdrawals of 22% and 41% in its private credit and technology-focused funds, respectively.

The firm attributed the above-average number of requests to “heightened market concerns around AI-related disruption to software companies.”

“We continue to observe a meaningful disconnect between the public dialogue on private credit and the underlying trends in our portfolio,” Blue Owl wrote in a letter to shareholders.

In February, Lipschultz stated that the firm doesn’t see any “red flags” in relation to software AI disruption. 

“Tech lending has worked, continues to work, and to get very direct, no, we don’t have any red flags. In fact, we don’t have yellow flags. We have largely green flags. The tech portfolio continues to be the most pristine amongst all of our subsectors,” Lipschultz said during a fourth-quarter earnings call with analysts. 

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