Morgan Stanley Direct Lending FundMSDL
About: Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund is a fund whose investment objective is to achieve attractive risk-adjusted returns via current income and to a lesser extent, capital appreciation by investing predominantly in directly originated senior secured term loans issued by U.S. middle-market companies backed by private equity sponsors. It invests predominantly in directly originated senior secured term loans including first lien senior secured term loans including unitranche loans and second lien senior secured term loans, with the balance of the investments expected to be in higher-yielding assets such as mezzanine debt, unsecured debt, equity investments and other opportunistic asset purchases.
Fund manager confidence
Based on 2025 Q1 regulatory disclosures by fund managers ($100M+ AUM)
325% more repeat investments, than reductions
Existing positions increased: 51 | Existing positions reduced: 12
127% more first-time investments, than exits
New positions opened: 25 | Existing positions closed: 11
19% more capital invested
Capital invested by funds: $431M [Q4 2024] → $513M (+$81.2M) [Q1 2025]
15% more funds holding
Funds holding: 82 [Q4 2024] → 94 (+12) [Q1 2025]
5.54% more ownership
Funds ownership: 23.48% [Q4 2024] → 29.02% (+5.54%) [Q1 2025]
0% more funds holding in top 10
Funds holding in top 10: 1 [Q4 2024] → 1 (+0) [Q1 2025]
57% less call options, than puts
Call options by funds: $1.26M | Put options by funds: $2.92M
Research analyst outlook
5 Wall Street Analysts provided 1 year price targets over the past 3 months
5 analyst ratings
Wells Fargo Finian O'Shea | 4%downside $19 | Equal-Weight Maintained | 28 Apr 2025 |
JP Morgan Melissa Wedel | 2%downside $19.50 | Neutral Maintained | 24 Apr 2025 |
UBS Doug Harter | 3%upside $21 | Neutral Maintained | 17 Apr 2025 |
Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Ryan Lynch | 1%upside $20 | Market Perform Maintained | 8 Apr 2025 |
RBC Capital Kenneth Lee | 11%upside $22 | Outperform Reiterated | 4 Mar 2025 |
Financial journalist opinion
Based on 11 articles about MSDL published over the past 30 days









