Private credit shakeout continues, but investors are still seeking opportunity amid the noise, says VanEck

The private credit markets have seen plenty of turmoil recently, although asset manager VanEck says investors are looking to tap into this volatility.

Last year the company launched its VanEck Alternative Asset Manager ETF (Ticker: GPZ). While the ETF does not give investors direct exposure to private credit, it includes companies such as Ares Management Corp. (Ticker: ARES), KKR & Co. Inc. (Ticker: KKR), and Blue Owl Capital Inc. (Ticker: OWL) that manage private credit.

“It’s unique because in the ETF market, pretty much every rock has been turned over and there’s an ETF for virtually everything, but there really hasn’t been one for this subsegment of the financial market, these alternative asset managers that are managing all these private market assets that have ballooned in AUM over the years,” Brandon Rakszawski, director of product management at VanEck, told InvestmentNews.

However, the ETF has not been immune to the waves buffeting this corner of the market. Rakszawski explained that, with concerns resonating throughout the private markets, GPZ was down by about 25% on the year earlier this month. “The interesting dynamic at play right now is do investors now feel like the selloff is overdone,” he added. “We saw a lot of inflow come into the ETF recently.”

More specifically, on March 19, GPZ posted its highest trading volume on record, with approximately 1.03 million shares. By the end of last week, GPZ had taken in $19 million, marking its best week since its launch in June 2025.

“I think there’s likely investors out there that are seeing value at these levels,” said Rakszawski. “It certainly adds a compelling entry for some investors that are willing to take on some exposure with potential risk in the market.”

 Shares of KKR, for example, have fallen more than 28% this year, while Ares is down more than 33% and Blue Owl is down more than 38%. Two of the fund’s other holdings, Blackstone Inc. (Ticker: BX) and the Carlyle Group Inc. (Ticker: CG) are down more than 28% and 20%, respectively.

The asset manager also offers its VanEck BDC Income ETF (Ticker: BIZD), which is a fund of publicly-traded business development companies. “We continue to see strong trading and flows as it relates to that particular ETF,” said Rakszawski. “It’s an opportunity for investors if they have conviction in these BDCs, they are seeing a lot of them trade at a steep discount to their marks - so it might present itself as an attractive entry opportunity for many of these investors,” he added.

ETFs have enjoyed booming demand in recent years and total net assets have soared from $2.1 trillion at year-end 2015 to $11.5 trillion in June 2025, according to data from the Investment Company Institute. ETF ownership also surged to 16.9 million households, up from 1 million in 2005, according to Investment Company Institute data.

Last week, at the Exchange ETF  conference in Las Vegas, VanEck CEO Jan van Eck told InvestmentNews that advisors are increasingly looking for ways to bask in gold's warm glow, citing the precious metal's epic rally of recent years.