The Florida State Board of Administration (SBA) is preparing to sell a portfolio of private credit holdings valued at up to $4bn, in what could become one of the largest deals in this market, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The report cites unnamed individuals familiar with the situation as revealing that the pension fund, which oversees state pensions and other assets, aims to reduce its exposure to higher-yielding opportunistic credit strategies and shift focus towards more stable, mainstream direct lending. The sale could range between $3bn and $4bn, though it may end up being smaller and conducted through a series of transactions, where interested buyers can select parts of the portfolio, according to Bloomberg’s sources.
“The SBA continuously evaluates opportunities to adjust its investments and shift strategies to optimise the portfolio and maximize returns,” said Emily Percival, the SBA’s director of external affairs and special projects legal counsel, in an email statement, adding that as a policy, the SBA does not publicly discuss specific transaction details.
At a June meeting of the SBA’s investment advisory council, senior investment officer Trent Webster outlined plans to double the fund’s exposure to direct lending over the next few years, while reducing its stake in higher-yielding credit strategies. “We’ll be shifting more toward income-generating, ‘boring’ credit,” Webster said at the time.
Public filings reveal that the Florida SBA has backed several opportunistic credit strategies with firms like Blackstone, Oaktree Capital Management, and Värde Partners. Now, the fund’s decision to offload some of these holdings aligns with broader trends in the booming private credit market. According to a survey by Ely Place Partners, up to $15bn in private credit sales are expected to close this year alone.
Secondary-market credit buyers, such as Coller Capital, Ares Management, and Pantheon Ventures, are increasingly deploying large pools of capital to acquire private debt stakes, often at discounted prices. These deals offer institutional investors a chance to unlock liquidity in the rapidly growing $1.7tn private credit market.
Earlier this month, Coller Capital launched a new credit-secondaries fund targeting retail investors, marking an expansion in this evolving sector.
