The recent spike in private credit redemptions highlights the risks in bringing higher-yielding, illiquid assets into the mainstream retail wealth space.But Blackstone COO Jon Gray told CNBC that most investors do understand the product.Publicly-traded private asset firms have sold off in recent days as the sector traverses multiple challenges.

The rush for the exits in private credit is prompting fresh scrutiny of the sector's less-liquid structures and its rapid expansion into the retail wealth space.

Blackstone has become the latest fund manager to be hit by a surge in requests from investors to withdraw from its flagship private credit strategy.

The asset manager said this week it will meet 100% of redemption requests in its gigantic $82 billion Blackstone Private Credit Fund, or BCRED, after investors sought to pull a record 7.9% of assets from the fund, or about $3.8 billion.

That came after Blue Owl Capital said last month it was ending regular quarterly liquidity payments in its Blue Owl Capital Corporation II fund, a semi-liquid private credit strategy aimed at U.S. retail investors. The private credit specialist will instead switch to periodic payouts funded by asset sales, earnings and other strategic deals.

This spike in redemption requests is now putting the private market industry's courting of retail investors under closer scrutiny, and bringing the mismatch between non-publicly-traded, higher-yielding illiquid assets and retail-style access into sharper focus.

Blackstone the world's biggest alternative investment manager, with $1.27 trillion in assets under management said it was upping a previously-announced tender offer to 7% of total shares, with the firm and employees offsetting the remaining 0.9%, in order to meet the redemption requests in full.

Blackstone Chief Operating Officer and President Jon Gray acknowledged that the risk of private credit firms failing to meet withdrawals, and potentially gating investors' money, is "not beneficial in the near term" for the sector.

But speaking with CNBC's "Squawk On The Street" Tuesday, Gray said individual investors and financial advisors "in most cases do" understand the product.

"What people sometimes fail to recognize is, they're designed as semi-liquid products," Gray said. "The idea that there are caps is really a feature, not a bug of these products. What you're doing is trading away a bit of liquidity for higher returns. That's the same trade-off institutional investors have made for a long period of time."

Shares of publicly traded alternative asset managers including Blackstone and Blue Owl, as well as KKR , Ares Management and Carlyle Group , among others have dipped as concerns over multiple pressure points in the sector have spread.

These include late-cycle loan quality, AI-related risks in software portfolios , and fears of further individual blow-ups following the First Brands and Tricolor implosions last year.

Gray said that lowly-leveraged loans which produce a premium for investors are "a pretty good place to be," adding that he expects they will continue to outperform liquid credit.

The BCRED fund has generated a 9.8% return since inception in its main share class, which indicates that, for now, the challenge remains one of liquidity rather than performance. Gray said there had been a "ton of noise " around private credit in recent weeks, adding, "it's not a surprise that investors can get nervous."

Moody's Ratings warned that private credit's tricky balance between delivering outsized returns while also offering retail-like liquidity will continue to be tested as the sector evolves towards the mainstream. In a recent commentary, Marc Pinto, global head of private credit at Moody's, said funds may need to hold a larger proportion of more liquid, lower62yielding assets to account for a growing retail presence which could prove a drag on returns.

Ultimately, the underlying assets will remain illiquid, regardless of the fund's structuring, said William Barrett, managing partner at Reach Capital. "The retail market has to be conscious of that and not invest in these products the same way it would in an ETF," Barrett told CNBC via email.

"Private markets inflows have been dominated by the institutional market for decades," Barrett told CNBC via email. "It makes sense for our industry to now offer our products to retail but we should probably test it first with HNWI [high net worth individuals] and mass-affluent segments rather than making a 180-degree switch to mass retail."

Barrett said the industry has to carefully select the right target markets for the right liquidity structures and the right underlying assets.

He noted that while there has been little sign of underperformance in the credit space at the portfolio level, "it makes sense that semi-liquid products feel the liquidity pressure first."

Man Group , the London-listed global alternatives manager which has expanded its private credit activity in recent years, said private credit loans are originated with the "express purpose" of being held to maturity.

"This lack of tradability is a feature of the asset class, not a flaw," said Andrew Weymann, director, client portfolio manager, U.S. private credit, and Zeshan Ashfaque, senior managing director and senior credit officer, U.S. direct lending, in a note Tuesday.

They said redemption pressure in private credit could also be influenced by another area of weakness: exposure to software-as-a-service companies. Blue Owl is a significant direct lender to the sector, which has been shaken by concerns that rapidly advancing AI tools could erode traditional SaaS business models.

"If retail inflows slow and outflows pick up, particularly for managers most exposed to AI risks or whose capital bases have a significant retail component, this will be an additional headwind for the industry to contend with," Weymann and Ashfaque noted.

近期私募信贷赎回激增，凸显了将高收益、低流动性的资产引入主流零售财富领域的风险。但黑石集团首席运营官乔恩·格雷（Jon Gray）向美国消费者新闻与商业频道（CNBC）表示，大多数投资者确实理解该产品。近日，公开上市的私募资产公司股价普遍下跌，因该行业正面临多重挑战。

私人信贷领域的资金撤离潮正引发对该行业流动性较差的结构及其快速向零售财富领域扩张的新一轮审视。

黑石集团成为最新一家遭遇投资者撤资潮的基金管理公司，其旗舰私募信贷策略面临大量赎回请求。

该资产管理公司本周表示，在投资者申请赎回创纪录的7.9%基金资产（约合38亿美元）后，其规模达820亿美元的**黑石私人信贷基金**（BCRED）将满足全部赎回请求。

此前，蓝猫头鹰资本（Blue Owl Capital）于上月宣布，将终止其面向美国零售投资者的半流动性私募信贷策略基金——蓝猫头鹰资本公司II基金（Blue Owl Capital Corporation II）的常规季度流动性支付。该私募信贷专业机构将转而采用通过资产出售、收益及其他战略交易提供资金的定期派息方式。

赎回请求的激增使私募行业对散户投资者的招揽行为受到更严格审视，同时让非公开交易的高收益非流动性资产与散户准入方式之间的错配问题更为凸显。

全球最大另类投资管理公司黑石集团（Blackstone）管理资产规模达1.27万亿美元。该公司表示，将把此前宣布的股票回购要约比例提高至总股本的7%，同时由公司和员工共同承担剩余的0.9%，以全额满足投资者的赎回请求。

黑石集团首席运营官兼总裁乔恩·格雷承认，私募信贷公司若无法满足赎回要求并可能限制投资者资金提取，这一风险对该行业而言"短期内不利"。

但格雷周二在接受美国消费者新闻与商业频道（CNBC）《街头呐喊》节目采访时表示，个人投资者和理财顾问"在大多数情况下确实"了解该产品。

格雷表示：“人们有时未能意识到，这些产品本身就是作为半流动性资产设计的。设置限额其实是产品的特性而非缺陷，其本质是以牺牲少量流动性换取更高收益。这与机构投资者长期以来的权衡策略如出一辙。”

随着市场对该行业多重压力点的担忧蔓延，公开上市的另类资产管理公司股价普遍下跌，其中包括黑石集团（Blackstone）、蓝猫头鹰（Blue Owl）、KKR集团、阿瑞斯管理公司（Ares Management）以及凯雷集团（Carlyle Group）等。

这些问题包括：经济周期后期的贷款质量、软件投资组合中与人工智能相关的风险，以及继去年First Brands和Tricolor两家公司崩盘后，市场对更多个体企业爆雷的担忧。

格雷表示，低杠杆贷款能为投资者带来溢价收益，是"相当不错的投资选择"，并预计这类贷款的表现将持续优于流动性信贷。

BCRED基金自成立以来，其主份额类别已实现9.8%的回报率，这表明目前面临的挑战主要是流动性问题而非业绩表现。格雷（Gray）表示，最近几周私募信贷领域出现了"大量杂音"，并补充道："投资者感到紧张并不令人意外。"

穆迪评级警告称，随着私募信贷行业向主流市场发展，其在实现超额回报与提供类零售流动性之间的微妙平衡将持续面临考验。穆迪全球私募信贷主管马克·平托（Marc Pinto）在近期评论中指出，为应对日益增长的零售投资者需求，基金可能需要配置更高比例的流动性较强但收益较低的资产——这可能会对整体回报率造成拖累。

Reach Capital管理合伙人威廉·巴雷特（William Barrett）表示，无论基金结构如何设计，底层资产最终仍将缺乏流动性。巴雷特通过电子邮件向CNBC指出："零售市场必须意识到这一点，不能像投资ETF那样投资这些产品。"

巴雷特通过电子邮件对CNBC表示："数十年来，私人市场的资金流入一直由机构市场主导。如今我们行业向零售客户提供产品是合理的，但或许应该先在高净值人群和大众富裕阶层中试水，而不是直接180度转向大众零售市场。"

巴雷特表示，该行业必须审慎选择适合的目标市场，以匹配恰当的流动性结构和合适的底层资产。

他指出，尽管在投资组合层面信贷领域尚未出现明显表现不佳的迹象，但"半流动性产品首先感受到流动性压力是合乎情理的"。

曼氏集团（Man Group）是一家在伦敦上市的全球另类投资管理公司，近年来扩大了其私募信贷业务。该公司表示，私募信贷贷款的发放具有"明确目的"，即持有至到期。

美国私募信贷部客户投资组合经理安德鲁·韦曼（Andrew Weymann）与美国直接贷款部高级董事总经理兼高级信贷官泽山·阿什法克（Zeshan Ashfaque）在周二的一份报告中表示：“这种缺乏流动性的特点正是该资产类别的属性，而非缺陷。”

他们表示，私募信贷领域的赎回压力可能还受到另一个薄弱环节的影响：对软件即服务（SaaS）企业的风险敞口。蓝猫头鹰资本（Blue Owl）是该领域的重要直接贷款方，而该行业正因担忧快速发展的AI工具可能侵蚀传统SaaS商业模式而受到冲击。

韦曼（Weymann）和阿什法克（Ashfaque）指出："如果零售资金流入放缓而流出增加，尤其是对那些最易受人工智能风险影响或资本基础中零售占比较高的管理人而言，这将成为行业需要应对的额外阻力。"