Howard H. Stevenson, Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Video from 2013
source
Howard H. Stevenson, Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus
Video from 2013
source

This week, a coalition of artist representatives published an open letter titled ‘Say No to Suno,’ calling on the music community to reject the AI music generator.
In other Suno news, the company’s CEO and co-founder Mikey Shulman revealed that the firm has reached 2 million paid subscribers and $300 million in annual recurring revenue.
Also this week, GoldState Music, the investment firm founded by music industry veteran Charles Goldstuck, confirmed it has entered a strategic partnership with Bridgepoint Group, the London-listed mid-market investor.
Meanwhile, news broke this week that Primary Wave is in advanced talks to potentially acquire Kobalt Music Group.
Elsewhere, it was revealed that Grammy-winning rap duo Salt-N-Pepa have filed a notice of appeal against the dismissal of their lawsuit against Universal Music Group over the copyrights to their master recordings.
Here are some of the biggest headlines from the past few days…
A coalition of artist representatives has published an open letter calling on the music community to reject AI music generator Suno.
In an open letter titled ‘Say No to Suno’, the artist reps described the company as a “brazen smash and grab” platform, accusing it of using “unauthorized AI platform machinery trained on human artists’ work”.
Published Monday (February 23) on the Music Technology Policy blog, the letter was signed by figures including Ron Gubitz, Executive Director of the Music Artist Coalition; Helienne Lindvall, songwriter and President of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance; and Chris Castle of the Artist Rights Institute.
Other signatories included artist David C. Lowery; artist and Artist Rights Alliance board member Tift Merritt; Blake Morgan, artist, producer, and President of ECR Music Group; and Abby North, President of North Music Group… (MBW)
AI music generator Suno has reached 2 million paid subscribers and $300 million in annual recurring revenue.
That’s according to CEO and co-founder Mikey Shulman, who shared the figures in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday (February 25), two years after the platform’s launch.
He also noted that over 100 million people have now used Suno.
“We launched Suno 2 years ago to let the world feel the joy of making music,” Shulman wrote. “Since then, over 100M people all over the world have used Suno, from music lovers to Grammy winners.”
The $300 million ARR figure represents a significant jump from the $200 million in annual revenue previously reported by The Wall Street Journal in November, when Suno closed a $250 million Series C funding round at a $2.45 billion post-money valuation… (MBW)
GoldState Music, the investment firm founded by music industry veteran Charles Goldstuck, has entered a strategic partnership with Bridgepoint Group, the London-listed mid-market investor.
Under the deal, announced on Thursday (February 26), Bridgepoint has committed what the two parties describe as “a significant investment” as lead investor in GoldState’s Growth Strategy – a dedicated fund focused on building and scaling music-oriented businesses globally.
The partnership marks a notable evolution for GoldState.
The company’s two previous fundraises – a partnership with private equity firm Flexpoint Ford in late 2023, and a USD $500 million raise co-led by Northleaf Capital Partners and Ares Management last April – were focused primarily on the acquisition of music rights, including catalogs, master recordings, and publishing assets… (MBW)
Primary Wave is in advanced talks to potentially acquire Kobalt Music Group.
MBW understands that Larry Mestel-led Primary Wave is among a number of potential suitors who have been in discussions with Kobalt’s majority owner, private equity firm Francisco Partners (FP), in recent months.
The latest intel is that Primary Wave now stands alone as a would-be buyer trying to agree on a sale price with Francisco.
For FP, a sale of Kobalt at this stage would be surprisingly early compared to a more typical private equity time horizon of holding an asset for 5-7 years before cashing out… (MBW)
Grammy-winning rap duo Salt-N-Pepa have filed a notice of appeal against the dismissal of their lawsuit against Universal Music Group over the copyrights to their master recordings.
The notice, filed on February 4 and docketed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on February 5, challenges the January 8 ruling by District Judge Denise Cote that dismissed both of the duo’s claims against Universal.
A judge ruled in January that the artists never owned the copyrights to their sound recordings and therefore cannot reclaim them.
The filing, obtained by MBW, also appears to reveal that Salt-N-Pepa (Cheryl James and Sandra Denton) have added prominent music industry lawyer Richard S. Busch of Nashville-based King & Ballow to their legal team… (MBW)
Partner message: MBW’s Weekly Round-up is supported by BMI, the global leader in performing rights management, dedicated to supporting songwriters, composers and publishers and championing the value of music. Find out more about BMI here. Music Business Worldwide
Key Points
When voters think of student loan forgiveness, they often picture executive actions and legal battles. Under President Biden, student loan debt relief efforts dominated headlines, particularly after the Supreme Court struck down his broad cancellation proposal.
But what you may not realize: The Trump administration could be on track to oversee one of the largest dollar amounts of student loan forgiveness in U.S. history, largely because of repayment programs already written into law.
This projection is not about a new sweeping forgiveness plan. Instead, it reflects the mechanics of existing federal student loan programs (some dating back decades) that are now reaching maturity.
And it’s going to be close:
|
Header
|
Biden |
Trump |
|---|---|---|
|
PSLF |
$78.5B |
$116.5B |
|
Borrower Defense |
$34.5B |
$7.5B |
|
IDR |
$56.5B |
$28.8B |
|
Other |
$18.6B |
$18.6B |
|
Total |
$188.1B |
$171.4B (Projected) |
President Biden entered office pledging student debt relief. While his proposed one-time cancellation of up to $10,000 or $20,000 per borrower was invalidated by the Supreme Court, his administration expanded and streamlined several existing forgiveness pathways.
The Biden administration approved roughly $188 billion in federal student loan forgiveness for about 5 million borrowers. That total includes relief under:
The dollar amount ($188 billion) is the benchmark against which future administrations will be measured.
Donald Trump has often criticized broad-based student loan cancellation. However, if current trends continue, his administration could preside over roughly $171.4 billion in forgiveness, without creating any new forgiveness programs.
Here’s how that figure breaks down:
Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) allows borrowers working in qualifying public service jobs (including teachers, nurses, and government employees) to have their remaining federal loan balances forgiven after 120 qualifying monthly payments, typically 10 years.
Based on the most recent PSLF data:
These borrowers are already on track with the necessary qualifying employment and payment history. The forgiveness would occur automatically once the 120-payment threshold is reached and paperwork is processed.
This is not new policy. PSLF was created in 2007 with bipartisan support. The forgiveness now expected reflects borrowers who entered public service more than a decade ago and are finally reaching the statutory milestone.
The timing is important to realize – especially when comparing old headlines about denial rates. While PSLF started in October 2007, it takes 10 years. But also, loans in 2007 weren’t generally eligible. It was until the Direct Loan Program took over all borrowing in 2009 that all loans were eligible. Then, you have 10 years of eligible repayment. Borrowers who took a loan in 2009 wouldn’t have started repayment until late 2013. Fast forward 10 years, and you get the first major waves in 2023.
That trend has continued, as the program became more popular throughout the 2015-2020 period. Those borrowers are finally reaching their 10 year mark.
Borrower Defense to Repayment allows students to seek discharge of federal loans if their schools misled them or engaged in misconduct. In a FOIA request The College Investor team submitted last year, the data through 2023 shows that over 760,000 borrower defense claims had been received, with nearly 60% remaining unprocessed.
While borrower defense processing slowed significantly during prior administrations and remains uneven, estimates suggest:
This includes the automatic discharge that may be happening as the result of Sweet v. McMahon (previously Sweet v. Cardona).
If these applications are resolved during Trump’s presidency, that amount would add to the administration’s forgiveness total, even if the policy framework itself remains unchanged.
The amount of debt discharged here could also be significantly higher. The Biden Administration, despite their slow processing, still processed $34.5B in Borrower Defense Claims.
The most significant variable may be income-driven repayment plans, particularly older plans such as:
Under these programs, borrowers make payments based on income for 20 or 25 years. After that period, any remaining balance is forgiven.
Following recent payment count adjustments and administrative fixes, forgiveness under these plans has accelerated.
Based on the latest processing data:
Unlike PSLF, which targets public service workers, IDR forgiveness applies broadly to borrowers who have made decades of income-based payments, often those who struggled with low earnings relative to their debt.
There are other smaller programs that consistently provide student loan forgiveness and the volume of loan forgiveness doesn’t change much year to year.
This include Death Discharge, Total and Permanent Disability, and identity-theft related claims.
We estimate that the Trump Administration will match the Biden Administration over their four years, amounting to roughly $18.7 billion in loan forgiveness for roughly 633,000 borrowers.
That amounts to about $4.7B forgiven for around 150,000 people/families per year.
Maybe… it will be close.
Based strictly on current pipelines and estiamtes:
Total projected: $171.4 billion
That figure falls short of Biden’s $188 billion – but not by much…
However, several factors could push totals higher:
Whether Trump ultimately surpasses Biden’s dollar total is to be seen.
Student loan forgiveness is often framed as a political flashpoint. Yet the next wave of student loan forgiveness will occur largely through existing statutory programs.
If current projections hold, the Trump administration could oversee roughly $171.4 billion in forgiveness, one of the largest totals in American history.
And the story likely does not involve sweeping executive action or lawsuits. Instead, it reflects the long arc of federal programs coming due.
Don’t Miss These Other Stories:
Editor: Colin Graves
The post Trump May Forgive Upwards Of $170B In Student Loan Debt appeared first on The College Investor.
I thought our family budget was airtight. We tracked our spending, cooked at home, and rarely splurged.
Yet, every month, our checking account felt like it had a slow leak. Out of sheer frustration, I uploaded a raw spreadsheet of our monthly statements to a free AI chatbot and asked it a simple question: “Where am I bleeding money?”
The response took less than ten seconds, but the results completely changed our financial trajectory. The AI did not just point out my daily coffee habit.
Instead, it exposed systemic, recurring traps costing us thousands of dollars a year — and then gave me the exact scripts and strategies to fix them.
Here is how that single afternoon chat slashed our bills.
When the AI pointed out that my bundled car and home insurance rates had crept up by nearly 20% over three years without me noticing, it prompted me to immediately shop around for a better policy.
It turns out, paying a loyalty penalty is incredibly common. You might be throwing away hundreds of dollars annually just to pad an insurance company’s profit margins.
The AI showed me that the only way to fight back is to compare rates instantly. This new car insurance shopping tool reveals if you are overpaying for your car insurance with just a few clicks.
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The chatbot calculated exactly how much interest I was losing by keeping our cash in a traditional, low-yield account, pushing me to move our funds to a high-yield option like SoFi Checking.
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After the AI flagged three streaming services I had not logged into since last year, I realized I needed a dedicated tool like Rocket Money to constantly monitor and cancel these forgotten monthly drains.
The AI proved that finding waste manually is exhausting. The average Rocket Money user saves $290 per month by letting the app hunt down and cancel sneaky subscriptions automatically.
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Analyzing my credit card statements, the AI showed me the grim mathematical reality of making minimum payments, which led me to explore aggressive debt resolution programs to clear the slate.
Worrying about massive monthly payments is draining, and paying steep finance charges is a mathematical trap.
The AI made it clear: if you have a problem, you must tackle it aggressively.
If you carry over $10,000 in debt, National Debt Relief is a highly respected provider that helps negotiate those balances down.
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One of the quickest wins the AI identified was our massive cell phone bill, proving that switching to a discount wireless provider could cut our monthly cost in half without sacrificing coverage.
Smartphones are a necessity, but paying heavily advertised giants is a choice. Finding a more affordable mobile provider saves hundreds every year, often on the exact same towers.
For example, Tello Mobile uses T-Mobile’s reliable 5G network, offering generous data, international texting, and hotspot access starting at just $5 a month.
Switching is incredibly fast. Tello recently upgraded their plans, offering unlimited data for just $25 a month, which includes 35GB of high-speed data and a 5GB hotspot.
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The AI ruthlessly highlighted how much of our monthly payment was going straight to interest charges, advising us to immediately transfer that balance to a 0% introductory APR card to stop the bleeding.
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When I asked the bot for the smartest way to fund a necessary home repair without touching our cash reserves, it ran the numbers and suggested leveraging our property value through a home equity line of credit.
You can drastically reduce your monthly debt obligations by using your home’s equity to pay off expensive credit card balances.
When my home soared in value, I turned to a home equity line of credit (HELOC) to replace high-interest debt with a much lower-interest loan. I saved hundreds annually by swapping rates, which eventually helped me pay off my house.
HELOCs are an efficient way to access cash for debt consolidation or home upgrades, as HELOC rates are often less than half what credit cards charge.
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The AI factored the age and mileage of our primary vehicle into its risk assessment, strongly recommending an extended auto warranty to prevent a sudden transmission failure from wiping out our savings.
A sudden mechanic bill can instantly destroy months of careful budgeting. With repair costs rising, a single breakdown is a severe threat to your financial stability.
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2026.2 Update: The new offer is 130k+1FN. Offer ends on 2026/04/15.
2025.10 Update: The new offer is 155k. Offer ends on 2026/01/14. [Expired]
2025.2 Update: The new offer is 130k+1FN. Offer ends on 2025/04/29. [Expired]
The welcome offer is very nice, so it’s worth applying for. If you have a lot of spending, it can be a good choice to spend $15k on this card. You already get 3x Hilton points on every spending, which is worth ~1.2% in return. Plus you will earn a free night, which can be worth about $250, that’s an additional ~1.7% in return. The total return is then ~2.9%.
Note: in 2019 there was a 130k+1FN welcome offer. The FN part is not shown in the chart. The latter part of 150k+50k offer is also not shown, because the spending requirement is too high.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Friday, Feb. 27, 2026 at 9 a.m. ET
Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email [email protected]
Management reported a continued portfolio transition, with post-integration investments now at 57%, reducing legacy exposure to 43%. $1.2 billion in new commitments was made across 35 deals, with GS leading approximately 75% of new opportunities. Undistributed taxable net income stood at $109 million, or $0.97 per share, and the company indicated no current plans to distribute a special dividend. An AI risk framework was formalized and actively applied in 2025, resulting in proactive exits of specific software assets due to perceived disruption risks. The direct lending Americas software portfolio saw about 10.3% year-over-year revenue growth and margin expansion of about 5 percentage points to 34.3%. Subsequent to quarter end, $505 million was drawn on the revolving credit facility to pay off maturing notes, and $400 million in 3-year investment-grade unsecured notes was issued at a 5.1% coupon, hedged to floating. The order book for the new note was 7.3 times oversubscribed relative to the $300 million starting size.
Vivek Bantwal: Thank you, John. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for our fourth quarter and fiscal year-end 2025 earnings conference call. I am here today with David Miller, our Co-Chief Executive Officer; Tucker Greene, our President and Chief Operating Officer; and Stan Matuszewski, our Chief Financial Officer. I would like to start by highlighting GSBD’s progress since our integration, followed by an overview of our platform’s activity during 2025. I’ll then spend some time sharing our perspective on current market conditions amidst most recent headlines in the software space.
I’ll then turn the call over to David and Tucker, who will dive into our fourth quarter results portfolio activity and performance before handing it off to Stan to take us through our financial results. And finally, we’ll open the line for Q&A. Since GSBD’s integration into the broader direct lending platform in 2022, we’ve enhanced our sourcing, underwriting and portfolio management oversight. This quarter, the proportion of our portfolio benefiting from the 2022 reorganization has grown to 57%, while 43% still reflects deals made prior to the integration, which we call the legacy portfolio.
From this integration, GSBD has directly benefited through a deeper origination funnel and the ability to invest in and frequently lead larger senior secured debt transactions supported by the platform’s disciplined approach. We have approximately 250 investment professionals on our broader private credit platform. The scale of our investing team, the scale of our platform and the incumbency, relationships and investment prowess. Our team has built up over nearly 30 years, stacks up well against industry peers. What makes it more powerful and unique is having a private credit business attached to the #1 global investment bank.
In addition to the deal origination through our dedicated private credit team, we are able to draw on the relationships of more than 3,000 investment bankers, helping us identify potentially attractive opportunities from our #1 M&A franchise which we can select from as a fiduciary to investors subject to regulatory requirements. Before I dive into our view on the market, I’d like to highlight some broader stats that illustrate the progress GSBD has made as we continue to transition to the direct lending platform. The median EBITDA of the portfolio has increased 84% from year-end 2021 to $71.8 million at year-end 2025. Our exposure to first lien investments increased to 97% of the portfolio from 89% during that same period.
Throughout 2025, GSBD demonstrated continued progress in addressing credit quality concerns and active management of the portfolio. PIK as a percentage of total investment income was 9% in Q4 2025, which is down from 15.3% in Q4 2024. Of that 9% during the fourth quarter, 5% of total investment income during the quarter was from PIK that was introduced as a loan modification or amendment after the initial agreement the vast majority of which relates to the legacy portfolio. Our investments on nonaccrual decreased slightly to 1.9% of fair value from 2% during the year. This is well below our highest nonaccrual rate since integration of 3.4% of fair value.
Another topical consideration we’ve been keen to address is our exposure to annualized recurring revenue or ARR loans within our broader BDC complex, which includes GSBD. From its peak of 36.5% during Q3 2022, we have significantly reduced the ARR exposure within the BDC complex to approximately 5% at year-end 2025. Within GSBD specifically, ARR loans came down from nearly 39% of the portfolio on a fair value basis to 11% during that same time period. This trend is attributed to our strategic focus on EBITDA-based investments since integration and our proactive approach in mitigating ARR loans from the legacy portfolio as we seek strategic exits or EBITDA conversions for the existing loans in the space.
Overall, our direct lending platform had another strong year in 2025, which directly benefited GSBD. For the year in the Americas specifically, we committed a total of approximately $14.6 billion, which was larger than the $13 billion committed during 2024 and more than double the activity in 2023, all the while remaining selective and disciplined in our underwriting approach. From a macro perspective, despite a volatile first half of 2025, total M&A volume globally throughout the year was up 44% from 2024. U.S. private equity deals reached nearly $1.2 trillion, marking the second time in history that deal volume has surpassed $1 trillion.
Despite this being driven largely by mega deals exceeding $1 billion, we expect this M&A momentum in a potentially falling rate environment to continue and spur a resumption of private equity activity. A more favorable M&A environment should stimulate greater demand for credit financing. And despite the supply of credit remaining robust, we do anticipate spreads to moderately widen during the market dynamics we’ve seen over the past month. We believe that in today’s market environment, differentiation among managers will increasingly be driven by sourcing quality, underwriting discipline, collateral oversight and creditor protections. Let’s get to the topic of software. We have a very experienced software investing team.
Our view informed by extensive collaboration across Goldman Sachs, including our 13,000 software engineers, our technology investment banking team and our growth equity investors who are early to companies like Anthropic is that AI’s impact will be highly company-specific and nuanced. We will come back to the topic of software and go through some more detail on our framework and a case study but our broader private credit platform has operated with an incredibly high bar focusing on what we believe are high-quality situations in our very broad funnel. As it relates to the recent headlines in software, and the volatility we’ve seen in equity markets, we understand the concerns regarding AI’s potential impact on certain software business models.
However, as credit investors positioned at the top of the capital structure, our lens is fundamentally different from, say, equity investors. We don’t participate in growth or equity valuation upside. We’re focused on the durability of assets and their cash flows. This credit-focused perspective provides some insulation from valuation volatility. That said, we recognize that sufficiently severe disruption could impact creditworthiness, which is why we maintain ongoing vigilance and are prepared to adapt if our thesis on any portfolio company changes materially. We are focused on lending to scaled incumbent businesses that are deeply entrenched in mission-critical workflows and complex use cases, evidenced by strong retention and efficient growth.
These structural features, among other things, are key characteristics that we seek in software companies that demonstrate real incumbency advantages. Our direct lending platform has a long history of investing in the software sector with investments in the sector dating back to 2008 when we launched our first senior direct lending fund. We have been proactively assessing the impacts of AI on the software space for years. We passed on our first deal due to AI concerns in October of 2023 and rolled out an internal framework to evaluate AI disruption risk in early 2025, which is incorporated into all new investments in addition to our ongoing monitoring of existing portfolio exposure.
The characteristics of our framework include, but are not limited to, acting as mission-critical systems of record with proprietary data and deep domain expertise solving for complex use cases and deterministic outcomes with no tolerance for errors, leveraging the accumulation of context, deep understanding of customers’ unique requirements to drive critical business processes, providing broad platforms versus single-product tools, operating on modern underlying architecture with limited technical debt, actively innovating and embedding AI into their own products, operating in regulated and risk-averse industries with long-term customer relationships and trust as well as having proven track records of managing security, compliance, regulatory and governance complexities. We look at each opportunity through this lens in the underwriting process.
Across our broader Direct Lending Americas platform, we have closed or committed to ’26 new software deals since January 2025 that exhibit strong KPIs including an average Rule of 40 of 55.8%, comprised of 16.6% recurring revenue growth and 39.1% cash EBITDA margins. During the third quarter 2025, revenue growth and EBITDA margins of our Direct Lending Americas software portfolio improved to 9.2% and 34.9%, respectively, up from 7.8% and 30.3% a year earlier, respectively. Let me provide a concrete example of how we leverage the Goldman Sachs ecosystem for both proprietary origination and enhanced diligence by discussing our largest committed software deal during the quarter, Clearwater Analytics.
Clearwater Analytics, founded in 2004 and based in Boise, Idaho, provides cloud native investment accounting, analytics and reporting solutions for institutional investors, including insurance companies. Goldman Sachs has been around this company for a very long time. We were approached by the sponsors looking to take Clearwater Private as the only organization that we believe could have provided a 100% solution on a transaction of this size in both public and private markets in addition to offering M&A advice. We showed the sponsors indicative financing terms across both markets and ultimately, the sponsor selected the private credit alternative where we were able to structure and negotiate a mutually beneficial bilateral credit facility that included our desired long-term size allocation.
The bilateral process, both simplified and streamlined the sponsor’s financing process while protecting the confidentiality of the M&A process which was critically important for the M&A execution. This is an example of leveraging the broader GS ecosystem to deliver differentiated origination and outcomes for our investors. The other part of the ecosystem relates to diligence in our AI framework. The deal team benefited from a firsthand perspective on Clearwater’s capabilities and value proposition with Goldman Sachs being a customer of Clearwater’s across our Asset and Wealth Management and Global Banking and Markets divisions.
The deal team was able to conduct multiple calls with our engineering colleagues to validate our credit thesis and build a high degree of conviction related to the mission criticality and stickiness of the solution and competitive positioning and durability in a rapidly evolving technology landscape. And so in December 2025, the GS Private Credit Complex committed to 100% of a $3.5 billion investment in a new unitranche financing to support the take private of Clearwater by Warburg Pincus and Permira. And a few weeks later, the sponsors brought 9 other lenders into the deal.
The Goldman Sachs private credit complex retained our desired $1.235 billion of the facility, and the GS BDC will own $75 million of that at closing. The Clearwater investment highlights key characteristics that underscore our approach to investing in software amidst an evolving and nuanced investing environment. Clearwater’s advantages are not about the cost to write code. They’re about owning the customer relationship, leveraging proprietary data with network effects, navigating regulatory complexity, and providing the insurance policy that mission-critical systems will work reliably. These structural and strategic advantages enable Clearwater to continue providing value to its customers and benefit from AI advancements rather than be disrupted by them. Looking forward, our framework will continue to evolve as the landscape develops.
While AI remains a dynamic and rapidly evolving area, we remain confident in our ability to thoughtfully assess and help mitigate AI-related risks across both our current portfolio and new investment opportunities. That said, and this is important, this is not a time for complacency, but rather a time to remain humble, proactive, disciplined and forward-looking. We are focused on the implications of AI, not only within software, but across the broader business landscape, and we continue to leverage the differentiated capabilities of the Goldman Sachs ecosystem in support of our portfolio. With that, let me turn it over to my co-CEO, David.
David Miller: Thanks, Vivek. I’d now like to turn to our fourth quarter results. Our net investment income per share for the quarter was $0.37, and net asset value per share was $12.64 as of quarter end. This decrease of approximately 1% relative to third quarter NAV was largely due to net realized and unrealized losses in the quarter. The Board declared a fourth quarter 2025 supplemental dividend of $0.03 per share payable on or about March 20, 2026, to shareholders of record as of March 9, 2026. Adjusted for the impact of the supplemental dividend related to the fourth quarter earnings, the company’s fourth quarter 2025 adjusted NAV per share is $12.61.
The Board also declared a first quarter 2026 base dividend per share of $0.32 to shareholders of record as of March 31, 2026. We ended the quarter with net debt-to-equity ratio of 1.27x as of December 31, 2025, as compared to 1.17x as of September 30, 2025. GSBD committed approximately $1.2 billion in new commitments throughout the year in 35 new deals. Of the commitments made to new portfolio companies, GS played a lead role in approximately 75% of the deals. During the quarter, we made new commitments of approximately $394.9 million across 27 portfolio companies comprised of 7 new and 20 existing portfolio companies.
100% of our originations during the quarter were in first lien loans, which continues to reflect our bias in primarily maintaining exposure to investments that are at the top of the capital structure. During the quarter, in addition to Clearwater, we also acted as sole lead arranger in the acquisition of [ KUIU ], which is an e-commerce native apparel and accessory brand focused on outdoor enthusiasts. This transaction exemplified our ability to lean into high-quality company and commit 100% of the financing, which is an illustration of the platform’s deep sponsor relationships. Turning to portfolio composition.
As of December 31, 2025, total investments in our portfolio were $3.26 billion at fair value, comprised of 38.4% in senior secured loans, 1.3% in a combination of preferred and common stock and a negligible amount of warrants. With that, let me turn it over to Tucker to discuss repayments fundamentals and credit quality.
Tucker Greene: Thanks, David. I’ll first discuss the portfolio in more detail. At the end of the fourth quarter, the company held investments in 171 portfolio companies operating across 40 different industries. The weighted average yield of our total debt and income-producing investments at amortized cost at the end of the fourth quarter was 9.9% as compared to 10.3% at the end of the third quarter. Importantly, our portfolio companies continue to have both top line growth and EBITDA growth quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year on a weighted average basis. The weighted average net debt-to-EBITDA of the companies in our investment portfolio increased slightly to 5.9x during the fourth quarter compared to 5.8x during the third quarter.
At the same time, the current weighted average interest coverage of the companies in our investment portfolio at the end of the fourth quarter increased to 2x compared to 1.9x during the third quarter. As Vivek and David mentioned, we had a strong quarter of originations with an increase in our net funding as we continue to enhance the portfolio. Sales and repayment activity totaled $251.6 million during the quarter, primarily driven by full repayment and exit of 13 portfolio companies. One notable exit this quarter was with a portfolio company that our platform has been invested in for approximately 8 years. This company is a software provider for the staffing, recruitment and contingent labor industry.
Now despite performance remaining steady and showing no indication of deterioration in the near or long term, we decided to sell the loan at $0.99 to other lenders given anticipated headwinds and AI disruption risk within the industry. This is a strong example of our ability to be proactive and cautious towards exiting strong companies that we believe have potential AI risk. Our total repayments during 2025 amounted to $1.1 billion. Over 78% of this repayment activity was from pre-2022 vintage loans, demonstrating effective management of our assets. As of December 31, 2025, pre-2022 vintage investments constitute approximately 43% of GSBD’s portfolio at fair market value.
The firm maintains a proactive approach to monitoring, managing and resolving any associated credit issues. Throughout this past quarter, we utilized our 10b5-1 stock repurchase plan. We repurchased north of 1.5 million shares for $15 million, which is accretive to NAV by $0.04 per share. Since implementing the 10b5-1 plan in June 2025, we have repurchased $52.2 million or 4.7 million shares. And finally, turning to asset quality. As of December 31, 2025, we placed Pluralsight’s first Lien/Senior Secured Debt position — last out position on nonaccrual status. Investments on nonaccrual status increased slightly to 2.8% and 1.9% of the total investment portfolio at amortized cost and fair value from 2.5% and 1.5% as of September 30, 2025.
I will now turn the call over to Stan to walk through our financial results.
Stanley Matuszewski: Thank you, Tucker. We ended the fourth quarter of 2025 with total portfolio investments at fair value of $3.3 billion, outstanding debt of $1.9 billion and net assets of $1.4 billion. As David mentioned, our ending net debt to equity ratio as of the end of the fourth quarter was 1.27x. At quarter end, approximately 69% of our total principal amount of debt outstanding was in unsecured debt. As of December 31, 2025, the company had approximately $1.1 billion of borrowing capacity remaining under the revolving credit facility.
Subsequent to quarter end, on January 15, 2026, we borrowed $505 million under the revolving credit facility and used the proceeds together with cash on hand to repay the 2026 notes plus accrued and unpaid interest in full satisfaction of our obligations under the notes. Also subsequent to quarter end, on January 28, 2026, we issued $400 million of 3-year investment-grade unsecured notes with a coupon of 5.1%. We also hedged the issuance by swapping the coupon from fixed to floating to match GSBD’s floating rate investments. Over 100 investors participated in the company’s day of live deal marketing which resulted in the peak order book being 7.3x oversubscribed on our $300 million starting size.
Before continuing to the income statement, as a reminder, in addition to GAAP financial measures, we also reference certain non-GAAP or adjusted measures. This is intended to make our results easier to compare to results prior to our October 2020 merger with Goldman Sachs Middle Market Lending Corp., or MMLC. These non-GAAP measures remove the purchase discount amortization impact from our financial results. For the fourth quarter, GAAP and adjusted after-tax net investment income was $42.2 million and $41.8 million, respectively, as compared to $45.3 million and $44.8 million, respectively, in the prior quarter. On a per share basis, GAAP net investment income was $0.37, equating to an annualized net investment income yield on book value of 11.7%.
Total investment income for the 3 months ended December 31, 2025, and September 30, 2025, was $86.1 million and $91.6 million, respectively. Our undistributed taxable net income as of 12/31/2025 is approximately $109 million or $0.97 on a per share basis. With that, I’ll turn it back to Vivek for closing remarks.
Vivek Bantwal: Thanks, Stan, and thanks, everyone, for joining our earnings call. We are excited to continue turning over the portfolio into new attractive opportunities using the full breadth of the Goldman Sachs platform while continuing to navigate through this market environment with humility and continued heightened discipline. With that, let’s open the line for Q&A.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] We will go first to Finian O’Shea with Wells Fargo.
Finian O’Shea: I wanted to ask about Clearwater. It’s all real interesting color maybe from the — more from the banks platform perspective than software. So when we see — it sounds like you were — had an advantaged position there through Goldman. But can you give us a sense of the — like in a plus 450 type situation where those are all — those are the sort of big clean names we see those to me from the outside look like they’re not too much of a premium to BSL or the bank solution on a true like leverage-adjusted basis. So how was that true like market competitive?
Or did you lean in sort of one way or the other on say, leverage risk or like quality price on the low end? I guess if I’m worrying that right, just how distinct was your sort of angle in your underwrite?
Vivek Bantwal: Thanks for the question. Look, I think it’s a really good question. And I think this is a really good example, particularly the M&A kind of cycle kind of starts to pick up, which is, to your point, one of the things we do benefit from is in addition to the origination that our team provides, we do — we are kind of connected to #1 M&A investment bank. And so we see interesting opportunities that way. These take privates are particularly interesting because generally speaking, the most important thing in a take private is to keep the deal confidential. And so our ability to provide 100% solution helps the sponsor by avoiding leak risk.
And so then we can have a bilateral conversation. I would just say, and I don’t think we get into this name by name in terms of the specifics from a disclosure perspective. But you should assume that when we provide a certainty like that, in an M&A context on a bilateral basis, we’re providing value to the client by giving them 100% solution and very seamless execution while they’re kind of focusing on their much bigger picture of the M&A that we get paid incremental economics for that.
And so these M&A situations and these take privates in particular, we think are real sources for Alpha because when we can kind of bilaterally negotiate a document with sponsors that are kind of really mutually beneficial where we can really kind of solve for what’s important for each other, that tends to be a better dialogue and a better outcome than when you’re kind of in a competitive process, kind of needing to play the game theory of how to kind of lean in vis-a-vis competition.
Finian O’Shea: I appreciate that. And I guess, name specific, that’s very helpful. And sort of as a follow-up, I’ll give you and the team a plug for the shareholder letter on semi-liquids. Not having studied the — your nontraded semi-liquid as much, just curious if there is a different structure that administers the sort of safe flaws in semi-liquid and evergreen altogether or if it’s just a matter of better education as other prominent voices have been saying as well? I appreciate that.
Vivek Bantwal: Thank you, Finian, and thanks for the feedback on the letter. We appreciate that. Look, the first thing I’d say, and I think this is really important, is we don’t have different standards for different vehicles or different types of investors. We have a single process that goes to a single investment committee, and that’s a very robust process and a high bar. And so a deal needs to meet that high bar to go into our platform. And then once it’s in our platform, we kind of allocate it proportionally based on the kind of criteria of the different vehicles on a formulaic basis.
So there’s no kind of — this kind of good deals go here, other deals go there. Like there’s none of that, like everyone kind of shares in this. The second point I’ll make is from a fee standpoint, and this goes back to your question around Clearwater, any economics that we make on these deals get passed through to the LPs in the vehicles directly. So they completely benefit on a pro rata basis from kind of any value or economics that the platform is able to create. And so I think that’s also important and quite valuable. Look, the other thing, and as you said, we spent time on this kind of in the letter.
So we don’t use the word semi-liquid. We understand what people mean when they use that phrase. But I think it’s really — I think the thing you have to think about is the actual liquidity provisions in these vehicles are more nuanced than that. And so when we sit down with clients to kind of talk about our nontraded BDC, we make sure that we kind of go through and they understand exactly how it works and understand that part of the proposition is these are illiquid assets. And part of the premium that you’re getting in private credit versus public credit is for that illiquidity.
Now relative to a drawdown fund, there are some liquidity mechanisms that have nuance to them in terms of redemption repurchase caps and certain types of vehicles, that the manager, also the Board has the right to actually gate. So there’s like provisions to it. And so at the end of the day, we want people who understand what they’re getting into, who are thinking about that holistically in the context of the portfolio construction so that they’re kind of only allocating the part of their portfolio where they want this extra spread. They understand the trade-offs and the liquidity.
And so they’re allocating a portion of that portfolio where they don’t kind of need that liquidity for an extended period of time. And then the second thing that I think is really important is we’ve been very intentional in the way that we’ve kind of sized our vehicle. So the vast majority of our capital is drawdown capital. And obviously, it’s easier to modulate as a platform when your evergreen money is only a minority of your capital. You don’t have deployment pressure. I think one of the risks that one runs if they allow that kind of retail component to get too big is there a risk that it starts to kind of impact credit selection.
And one of the things that we want to make sure that we’re always doing is as a platform that’s been in this business for 30 years, we want to make sure that we’re investors, not asset gatherers, not deployers. And so yes, that has an impact on growth. Obviously, it’s easier to scale faster if you’re kind of going all in on the retail channel. But we think with a more measured approach, we’re in a really, really good position to kind of just navigate cycles. And so we saw, as it says in the letter, we saw some — we saw inflows kind of reduce a little bit in the fourth quarter.
We saw kind of redemption activity kind of pick up. Again, our metrics were quite favorable to what we saw in the industry. But we think that by having diversified sources of funding, you’ll be in a position where you can kind of deploy capital kind of through the cycle and put yourself in the best position to try to generate the best risk-adjusted returns for clients.
Finian O’Shea: Good stuff. I’ll do one follow. Dividend, you guys have historically been front-footed about that. Incentive fee adjusted SOFR look-through adjusted, you look a little bit below. Any sort of updated views on how you’re thinking about the 32 base?
David Miller: We feel pretty good about — we reset that last year with the curve and everything in mind. The other thing I would say is we’re somewhat optimistic that we see some spread widening here. It’s early days yet. I think a lot of people are still in price discovery, but we’re seeing anywhere from 25 to 50 basis points in both coupon as well as OID. So you roll that through the model, we feel very comfortable with the dividend as it sits today.
Operator: We’ll go next to Heli Sheth with Raymond James.
Heli Sheth: So I believe you mentioned that spillover is at $0.97 a share, and that’s kind of starting to approach or it’s over actually 3/4 of the base dividend. Is there any strategy there looking forward, how we should think about deployment of that spillover heading into 2026? And will it be used to cover any shortfall of earnings?
Stanley Matuszewski: Yes. So in terms of the spillover, that’s come down year-over-year. We had done with the restructure of our dividend structure into base and supplemental structure earlier in 2025, we utilized a certain portion of that spillover. To the extent that we would need to, we could issue a special distribution. We don’t have any current plans for that right now. And as a result of our supplemental distributions, we could also issue some — or we could also distribute some incremental NII.
Heli Sheth: Got it. And as a quick follow-up, as originations and repayments remain kind of elevated in this environment, are you seeing any sort of shift in the mix of the deals that you’re seeing in the pipeline, whether it be in terms of sponsor or nonsponsor incumbent versus new borrowers, LTVs?
Vivek Bantwal: No, I wouldn’t say the composition of the deal flow is changing. I would say that there continues to be signs that kind of M&A activity is sort of picking up. Obviously, not in software, just given what’s happened kind of in public markets and around software. But I’d say in other parts of the — kind of in other industries, we are kind of seeing more dialogue, and we’ll see where that dialogue goes.
Operator: We’ll go next to Ethan Kaye with Lucid Capital Markets.
Ethan Kaye: I appreciate the general color on software. You did mention you rolled out this AI kind of risk framework in the beginning of 2025. With that being said, it sounds like you were kind of cognizant of some of the risks, cognizant of the emerging risk prior to that, but maybe formalized it in 2025. But I guess I’m curious when you apply that framework to the current portfolio, do you find any names that maybe kind of wouldn’t have passed muster had they been underwritten while that framework was in place?
David Miller: Yes. No, thanks for the question, Ethan. As you said, we turned our first deal down for AI in 2023. So we’ve been aware of this for a long time. We did formalize our AI framework in early 2025 and put it through. And look, the majority of the portfolio stacks up pretty well. There are a few legacy assets that certainly would be — fit some of those weaker metrics and they would be more point solutions. I think you’ve seen some of those be marked down in the book to date, and we’re continuing to work on those to exit those.
The other thing I would say is, as we pointed out in the script, we’re very proactive in account management here. One of those names, for example, that was on the weaker side of that AI framework, we sold. So — and we sold it at $0.99 to other lenders that didn’t have the same viewpoint. So we’re being very proactive with it watching those names carefully. But by and large, we feel pretty good about the software portfolio. The other thing I would point out is, if you take a look at our software portfolio in general in GSBD, the performance is strong.
They had — revenue growth is about 10.3% year-over-year and margins expand by about 5 points to 34.3%, which is stronger metrics than the overall portfolio. So we feel pretty good about that.
Ethan Kaye: Great. I appreciate that color. I guess on repurchases, so you guys have prudently been kind of buying back shares here. You mentioned you repurchased over $50 million under the current authorization, which I believe is $75 million through June. And I know it’s formulaic, but given what you know about the inputs and the underlying formula, wondering kind of whether you anticipate that full utilization of that $75 million by expiration and then whether you would explore kind of a new authorization in second half of ’26?
Stanley Matuszewski: Sure. Thank you for the question. So one of the inputs into — as you mentioned, it is formulaic so that it can operate at any time. One of the inputs into that formula is our net debt-to-equity ratio. And so that ticked up period-over-period, and it’s right around our target. And so that is one of the limiting factors in us buying back. I think we will continue to assess the ability to utilize that program in the future. As you mentioned, we still have approximately $23 million of room within that program. We’ve been taking a measured approach to issuing that.
But it’s also going to depend on the other opportunities we see in the market and where spreads go.
Operator: This concludes the question-and-answer session. At this time, we will turn the call over to Vivek for any closing remarks.
Vivek Bantwal: Thanks, everyone, for the time today. We really appreciate the continued engagement and look forward to continuing the dialogue. Let us know if you have any more questions, and have a great rest of the day.
I know we just recently got a 5-handle for the 30-year fixed after several years in much higher territory.
But is it too soon to talk about 4% mortgage rates?
The reason I ask is because I’m seeing some aggressive rate quotes that are already nearly there.
So if we get some more favorable economic data and/or we hear more on proposals like the MBS buying, we could get the nudge needed to get them.
If it were to happen soon, during the traditional spring home buying season, it could be big.
At last glance, the 30-year fixed was averaging 6% on the nose, per the latest read from Mortgage News Daily.
It enjoyed two days at 5.99% before ticking up a single basis point, and chances are it will tick back down to 5.99% today.
Sure, it’s not a really a 5% mortgage rate, but a 5-handle mortgage rate.
In other words, it starts with a 5, but it’s far cry from 5%.
If it were 5%, there’d likely be a mad rush to buy homes again, though anecdotally I’m already hearing of bidding wars heating up again.
But here’s an important point. The rate indexes like MND’s simply represent composite mortgage rates for the market.
Put another way, a snapshot of the lender universe on any given day, mostly useful to track day-to-day movement as opposed to real rates.
This is to say that if their index says 5.99%, there are borrowers out there securing even lower rates (or in some cases higher rates).

That brings me to a big bank I check in on from time to time, which just so happened to be offering rates super close the 4s.
Again, we’re talking a 4-handle, aka 4.99%, not a 4% mortgage rate. And again, if rates were 4%, it’d likely be a madhouse out there between surging refinance applications and bidding wars.
Instead, I’m seeing rate quotes of 5.25% for both FHA loans and VA loans (which are always the cheapest loan options), and 5.5% for a conforming loan (Fannie/Freddie) 30-year fixed.
They’re also advertising a 15-year fixed at 5% even, meaning just one basis point above the 4s. And a 20-year fixed at 5.25%, not far either.
In other words, almost into the 4s across a number of different loan programs.
So in reality, there are a lot of lower mortgage rate quotes swirling around, well below the national averages we see in the headlines.
Notably, none of these rates even require a massive buydown (discount points) to get the deal.
Lately, lenders have attempted to lure in borrowers with heavily bought-down rates that often require 1.5% to 2% in points.
That can be super expensive since one point costs $1,000 for every $100,000 in loan amount.
But these rates mostly require a fraction of discount points, whether it’s 0.625% or 0.875%.
Sure, it’s still not free, but it’s quite reasonable, especially if you can get seller concessions and use those for these closing costs.
While we’re not quite there yet, the fact that some banks and lenders are already offering rates in the low-to-mid 5s is promising.
It means actual rate quotes and eventual rate locks will come in significantly lower than the national averages we see in the news.
This will make housing that much more affordable for prospective home buyers, while also giving more existing homeowners the opportunity to take advantage of a rate and term refinance.
If we continue to receive favorable economic data, such as lower inflation, or see more flights to safety (in bonds) as the stock market corrects, mortgage rates could move lower.
There are also pending initiatives like Fannie and Freddie’s $200 billion MBS buying program that could give rates a little push down as well.
And that could mean that some of these quotes that are already near the 4s could eventually get there.
So while everyone talks about 5% mortgage rates, it might not be unheard of to hear about borrowers snagging rates in the 4s again!
Just know that you’ll likely need a vanilla loan scenario, meaning an owner-occupied property, excellent credit score, low loan-to-value ratio (LTV), etc.
Read on: 2026 Mortgage Rate Predictions
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American Express has paused Membership Rewards point transfers to ANA Mileage Club. These transfers will be temporarily unavailable online through March 2 at 7 PM MST, as noted on the transfer page:
“Due to planned maintenance, Membership Rewards® point transfer to ANA will be temporarily unavailable online and by phone from February 25 at 1 PM MST to March 2 at 7 PM MST. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
Hopefully it’s just a planned maintenance as stated, as nothing more (like a devaluation?).
HT: FM