Inside How Funds Value Private Credit: New ICI Paper
WASHINGTON, DC; April 20, 2026— As investments in private credit attract more public attention, questions about how these assets are valued are coming into sharper focus. The Investment Company Institute (ICI) today released a new paper outlining how regulated funds approach private credit valuation and the governance frameworks that support it.
The paper, Valuation Governance Considerations for Private Credit Assets in Regulated Funds, captures current industry practices and highlights how firms are approaching valuation as the market evolves, serving as a resource for ICI members, regulators, policymakers, and the public seeking to better understand how regulated funds value private credit.
“Strong valuation practices and governance are critical to supporting fair and consistent treatment of investors,” said ICI President and CEO Eric Pan. “The paper’s comprehensive analysis of valuation practices reflects ICI’s unique ability to convene experts across the industry and translate that expertise into practical guidance.”
The paper was developed through ICI’s Security Valuation Operations Committee Private Credit Working Group, whose members shared substantive feedback and practical experience from their own valuation programs. Outside experts, including valuation specialists, accounting firms, and lawyers, also provided technical and legal review. The result reflects a broad cross-section of industry perspectives, offering insights that only ICI’s industry-wide reach and convening power can provide.
Private credit has evolved into a significant part of the global lending ecosystem, with assets under management increasing from $357 billion at year-end 2010 to more than $1.7 trillion as of June 2025. While business development companies (BDCs) have invested in private credit for decades, other regulated fund structures like interval funds, tender offer funds, and listed closed-end funds, have more recently expanded into the space.
Valuation approaches can vary across fund structures depending on how and when investors transact. For example, an interval fund with a large private credit position and frequent investor activity may update valuations monthly, with daily monitoring, while a listed BDC may follow a quarterly reporting cycle and monitor developments throughout the period. A diversified mutual fund with a small private credit allocation may scale its oversight to reflect the more limited impact on overall NAV. The framework is the same; what differs is how funds apply it.
As private credit markets continue to grow and more investors gain access through regulated funds, maintaining robust and well-governed valuation practices will remain essential. ICI will continue to monitor trends in these evolving markets and bring our data and analytics to bear. Read the full paper here.