Goldman Sachs reassures wealthy clients, private credit still looks attractive

Goldman Sachs is urging wealthy clients to stay constructive on private credit just as redemption behavior is starting to look less comfortable. Kristin Olson, Goldman Sachs’ global head of alternatives for wealth and a member of the firm’s Management Committee, used a Bloomberg Television appearance on April 15 to argue that private credit firms should keep drawing capital because the illiquidity premium still matters when clients are chasing returns that traditional fixed income may not deliver.

That message carries weight inside Goldman because Olson oversees the global alternatives platform and alternatives product strategy across wealth client businesses. It is also a signal to the advisers, private bankers and alternatives specialists who are trying to keep ultra-high-net-worth clients and family offices inside Goldman’s orbit while competitors pursue the same pools of assets. Goldman has had a private-credit business since 1996, and the firm says Goldman Sachs Asset Management now has $130 billion in private-credit assets under management spread across more than 600 positions, in a broader market that has grown to about $2.1 trillion.

Goldman has also been making a broader push to place alternatives at the center of its wealth conversations. The firm advises ultra-high-net-worth clients and family offices to allocate roughly 25% of a moderate-risk portfolio to alternatives, including private credit. It expanded its family-office platform on Nov. 12, 2024, and its 2025 Family Office Investment Insights report drew responses from 245 family-office decision-makers, the largest participation Goldman said it had received for that survey.

The confidence test got more pointed in early April, when Goldman Sachs Private Credit met first-quarter redemption requests equal to 4.999% of outstanding shares. Goldman Sachs Private Credit Corp. also said it had sold unregistered Class I and Class S shares as of Feb. 1, showing the firm was still raising money even as liquidity questions were rising around the asset class. Those numbers matter because they sit directly against Goldman’s pitch that private credit remains attractive despite the headline risk.

For Goldman, the stakes go beyond one product. If clients buy Olson’s view, the firm can keep feeding fundraising, portfolio construction and cross-sell between wealth and asset management teams. If they do not, Goldman will have a harder time defending private credit at a moment when the International Monetary Fund has warned that rapid growth in the market could weaken underwriting standards and raise future credit-loss risks. In other words, Goldman is not just defending an asset class; it is defending a core piece of its wealth strategy.