This move is all of a piece with a trend of wider access to private market investments by clients of RIAs, among others.

CAIS, an alternative investment platform for financial advisors, has launched an index linked to private credit, part of a continuing drive to “democratize” access to such assets.

The move came on the same day that President Donald Trump signed an executive order that is designed to make it easier for US retirement plans to hold private market investments. (See a separate report on the matter here.)

The US-based firm has launched the Solactive CAIS Private Credit BDC Index, aka CAISCRED. It is available through CAIS’ registered investment advisor, CAIS Advisors, in partnership with Solactive, an index provider. CAIS says the offering is a first-of-its-kind index designed to provide a transparent, rules-based benchmark for private credit exposure via the universe of perpetual non-traded BDCs (business development companies).

CAIS said the CAISCRED marks the beginning of a broader Index Series, which seeks to deliver standardized, transparent benchmarks for private market allocations. As the first index in the series, advisors can use CAISCRED to benchmark private credit BDC performance, and ongoing monitoring of private credit exposure through the universe of perpetual non-traded BDCs (business development companies).

“Advisor demand for registered products continues to grow, but until now, advisors have often relied on fragmented benchmarking and data analytics when analyzing private market allocations,” Neil Blundell, chief investment officer at CAIS Advisors said.

“This index series seeks to deliver transparent, reliable benchmarks that allow advisors to better evaluate, track, and compare private market allocations,” Blundell said. 

The rise of firms such as CAIS is part of a widening of access among HNW and mass-affluent investors to private markets, traditionally an area dominated by investment banks, large pension funds, and the ultra-rich. The “democratization” of access is a mixed blessing, some argue (see this article about the issues here from US correspondent Charles Paikert). 

Explaining how CAISCRED works, CAIS said the index is calculated by Solactive; it is rebalanced quarterly to measure the net performance of 40 perpetual non-traded BDCs, representing $130 billion in private credit net assets and more than 8,000 underlying loans.