Hard Asset Fundraising Rises 37% to $38.9 Billion as Credit Fundraising Falls 47% Through August
Shrewsbury, New Jersey, September 23, 2026 – Robert A. Stanger & Company, Inc., a nationally recognized leader in non-listed alternative investment products, has published its August 2026 issue of The Stanger Market Pulse. The report highlights continued capital rotation out of credit and into hard assets, with year-to-date hard asset fundraising now moving ahead of credit.
Alternative investment fundraising totaled $119.0 billion through August 2026, down 13% from $137.3 billion in the same period of 2025. The decline remained concentrated in credit strategies, where year-to-date fundraising fell 47% to $38.7 billion from $72.5 billion a year ago. Excluding credit, fundraising increased 24% year-over-year to $80.3 billion.
HALO strategies – hard assets with low obsolescence, consisting of real estate and infrastructure – raised $38.9 billion through August, up 37% from $28.4 billion in the same period last year. Infrastructure remained the primary driver of growth, raising $20.2 billion, up 65% year-over-year, while real estate strategies raised $18.8 billion, up 16%. At $38.9 billion, year-to-date HALO fundraising has now edged ahead of the $38.7 billion raised by credit strategies, with hard assets outraising credit in each of the past five months.
Year-to-date 2026 gross fundraising by investment strategy, compared with the same period in 2025, is summarized in the table below:
“Hard assets moving ahead of credit is a meaningful marker in a rotation we have been tracking all year,” said Kevin T. Gannon, Chairman & CEO of Stanger. “The crossover is narrow, but the shift behind it is not. A year ago, credit had raised more than two-and-a-half times as much as real estate and infrastructure combined through August. Investors are not leaving alternatives; they are reallocating, and the monthly data has pointed in the same direction since April.”
BDC fundraising remains the single largest source of the credit decline. Combined publicly registered and private placement BDC fundraising totaled $17.0 billion through August, down 60% from $43.0 billion in the same period of 2025. Publicly registered non-listed BDCs raised $8.1 billion, down 74%, while private placement BDCs raised $8.9 billion, down 22%. Private placement BDCs have now moved ahead of their publicly registered counterparts on a year-to-date basis, a reversal from the same period last year, when publicly registered BDCs raised nearly three times as much.
The structural shift is also visible across the broader market. Private placement vehicles raised $61.1 billion through August 2026, up 12% from $54.6 billion in the same period of 2025. Public programs raised $57.9 billion, down 30% from $82.6 billion. Private placements accounted for 51% of total year-to-date fundraising, up from 40% a year earlier.
“Investors are changing how they access alternatives as much as what they are buying,” Gannon added. “Private placements represented roughly a quarter of year-to-date fundraising five years ago; today, they account for more than half. That is a structural change in how alternative investment capital is being raised.”
Year-to-date gross fundraising by product category through August 2026, compared with prior full-year totals, is summarized in the table below:
As published in the August 2026 issue of The Stanger Market Pulse, the Top Twenty Sponsors by year-to-date gross fundraising are summarized in the table below:
To request a copy of The Stanger Market Pulse, or for more information on all available Stanger Publications, please visit our website or contact:
Gregory R. DiSalvo
732.389.3600
gdisalvo@rastanger.com
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About Robert A. Stanger & Co., Inc.
Robert A. Stanger & Co., Inc., founded in 1978, is a nationally recognized investment banking firm specializing in providing investment banking, financial advisory, fairness opinion and asset and securities valuation services to partnerships, real estate investment trusts and real estate advisory and management companies in support of strategic planning, capital formation and financings, mergers, acquisitions, reorganizations, and consolidations.
Stanger is also well known for its industry leading publications: The Stanger Report, a nationally recognized comprehensive report focused on non-traded REIT and BDC investing, including aggregate market statistics, total returns by company and total return indices, fee structure comparisons, and profiles of current offerings; The Stanger Market Pulse, a monthly deep-dive into alternative investment fundraising; The Stanger Chairman’s Report, focused on NAV REIT and non-traded BDC sales and redemptions; The Stanger Closed-End Fund Report, focused on non-traded interval fund and tender offer fund investing; Stanger Privates, a quarterly publication focused on Private Placement REITs and BDCs exclusively available to Stanger Institutional Access subscribers; and The Stanger Alt Street Journal, a weekly newsletter providing an update on industry activities.
For More Information:
Kevin T. Gannon | Chairman & CEO | (732) 389-3600
Robert A. Stanger & Co., Inc.
1129 Broad Street, Suite 201
Shrewsbury, NJ 07702
www.rastanger.com
Member: SIPC
