5C Lending Partners Corp: NAV $24.57 at Sep 30, 2026, $467 Million ABL Facility, 176% Asset Coverage

Who is behind the fund, from the filings

The fund is a Maryland corporation formed on October 16, 2023, externally managed and non-diversified, and elected to be a BDC under the Investment Company Act of 1940. It also elected to be taxed as a regulated investment company (RIC), which means it intends to pay out most of its taxable income. Its office is at 330 Madison Avenue in New York.

The manager is 5C Lending Partners Advisor LLC, a registered investment adviser. The 10-K says it is owned by entities controlled by 5C Investment Partners LP (“5C”), which it describes as an alternative investment firm that commenced operations in September 2023 and has its principal place of business in New York. The same 10-K says 5C was started by two founders who spent more than 25 years each at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. An affiliate, 5C Investment Partners Administrator LLC, is the administrator, and U.S. Bancorp Fund Services, LLC is the sub-administrator. That is all the filings say about the sponsor; we have not used any source outside them.

How the fund is financed

A private BDC like this one raises equity in drawdowns: investors promise a total amount and send cash when asked. At September 30, 2026 the fund had commitments of $1,014,163 thousand, of which $588,591 thousand was undrawn (up from $729,030 thousand and $492,157 thousand at December 31, 2025). The contributed share was 41.96%. There were three drawdowns in nine months: $58,699 thousand on March 20, $90,000 thousand on July 24 and $40,000 thousand on September 17, 2026. Those imply roughly $24.45, $24.29 and $24.48 a share (our arithmetic), close to the NAV at the time. The fund also issued 321,027 shares to holders who did not opt out of the distribution reinvestment plan.

The rest comes from two credit facilities.

The two are different tools. The Credit Facility is a subscription line: it is repaid from the next capital call and lent against investors’ promises. The ABL (asset-based lending) facility is secured by the loans themselves. The 10-Q says the fund sells loans to the borrower subsidiary, pledges its equity in it, and that the facility “is secured by all of the assets of the Borrower”. In the nine months to September 30, 2026 the fund borrowed $861,110 thousand and repaid $648,313 thousand on its credit facilities (cash flow statement), so the outstanding balance understates how much money moved through them. Interest expense was $7,288 thousand in the third quarter, 35% of the $20,656 thousand of investment income (our arithmetic). The weighted average interest rate in the quarter was 5.3%, against a 9.5% portfolio yield. The 4.2-point gap is a rough guide only, since the two measures are built differently (our arithmetic).

The leverage ratio, in three ways

Asset coverage is the number a BDC must keep at 150% or more, and the 10-Q describes the meaning in its own words: “for every $100 of net assets the Company holds, the Company may raise $200 from borrowing and issuing senior securities”. At 1.30 times, the fund is using about two thirds of that limit. At the 150% asset coverage floor in Section 61(a)(2), debt could be twice net assets, or $865,830 thousand, against $562,769 thousand now, a headroom of about $303,061 thousand (our arithmetic). The 176.44% figure is reproducible from the balance sheet: total assets less liabilities other than debt, $995,684 thousand, divided by debt plus the $1,545 thousand of preferred stock, $564,314 thousand, gives 176.44% (our arithmetic). Leverage fell in the third quarter because $130 million was drawn from investors in July and September, not because the fund repaid debt: debt rose by $124,213 thousand in the quarter (our arithmetic).

Worked example (our arithmetic, illustrative, not the fund’s results). With $100 of equity and 1.30 times in debt, $230 is invested. At the 9.5% yield that earns $21.85, and at 5.3% the debt costs $6.89, leaving $14.96 before fees, expenses and credit losses. The same leverage works the other way: a 5% fall in the value of the $230 is $11.50, which is 11.5% of the equity.

NAV per share: where the $0.67 went

The financial highlights in the third-quarter 10-Q give the bridge for the nine months: $25.24 at the start, plus $1.44 of net investment income, minus $0.98 of realized and unrealized losses, minus $0.01 of preferred dividends, minus $0.80 of common distributions, minus $0.32 from share transactions, equals $24.57. The share-transactions line is described in the filing as a balancing amount. The total return on NAV for the period is 0.57%, not annualized. Investments are carried at $976,102 thousand against an amortized cost of $988,295 thousand, 98.8% of cost (our arithmetic).

The first-quarter drop to $24.38 and the second to $24.17 came with an unrealized loss of $9,341 thousand and then $5,588 thousand. The 10-Q attributes the nine-month loss on investments of $13,838 thousand mainly to “a widening in credit spreads relative to the origination date”, and the third-quarter gain to the tightening of spreads. If that is the driver, the NAV follows the credit market and not just the fund’s own loans.

Income: how much is cash, and what the distribution rests on

PIK means the borrower pays by adding to the balance instead of paying cash. The 10-Q puts PIK interest at 9.8% and PIK dividends at 7.9% of third-quarter investment income, 17.7% together (our arithmetic), and the nine-month share is 21.5% (our arithmetic). The 10-Q says the fund must generally distribute at least 90% of its investment company taxable income to keep its RIC status; how PIK income is taxed is a tax question this page does not answer.

Fees are modest on paper: a management fee of 0.60% of gross assets excluding cash, and an incentive fee of 10.0% of income above a 6.0% annual hurdle with a catch-up, plus 10.0% of realized capital gains. The step-up on a listing, to 1.00% and 17.5%, is spelled out in the 10-Q. The Advisor paid expenses for the fund in earlier periods, and the 10-Q says all previously unreimbursed amounts, $3,949 thousand in the nine months, have now been recognized as owed to it. A new Expense Limitation Agreement of May 5, 2026 caps operating expenses at 0.25% of average quarterly gross assets, and the Advisor paid nothing under it in the nine months.

The portfolio the NAV rests on

At September 30, 2026 the fund held 31 portfolio companies (19 at December 31, 2025), 87.5% of income-producing investments at floating rates. By November 4, 2026 the 10-Q reports $1,273.7 million across 32 companies, including loan commitments of $1,212.6 million, of which $222.0 million is unfunded, and $61.1 million of preferred equity. A $73 million first lien loan to Heartland Home Services, Inc. closed on November 3, 2026. Unfunded commitments to portfolio companies were $200,768 thousand at September 30, 2026.

The five are $292,354 thousand, 30% of the $976,102 thousand portfolio (our arithmetic). We read them from the schedule of investments and added the lines for a borrower where it shows more than one. On our count the next largest borrower is smaller than the fifth (our arithmetic). No investment is on non-accrual, and the Advisor rates all of them 2, meaning performing as expected.

What a reader can do with this

• If you hold shares: compare your statement with the filed NAV of $24.57 at September 30, 2026, and with the price per share of your drawdowns. Drawdowns this year were at about $24.3 to $24.5 a share (our arithmetic).
• Watch five lines in the next 10-Q and 10-K: debt over net assets (1.30 times now), asset coverage (176.44%), the PIK share of income (21.5% for nine months), non-accruals (none) and the NAV against the cash distribution. The fund’s ABL had $133,000 thousand of undrawn commitment at September 30, 2026.
• If you are being offered shares: ask what the next drawdown is priced at, how much of the $588,591 thousand undrawn you could be called for, when the fund expects to seek a listing, and what happens to fees on a listing. The 10-Q says there is no assurance that any listing will occur: “Any Exchange Listing is subject to future market conditions and there can be no assurance that any Exchange Listing will occur.”
• If you hold an unfunded commitment: you can be called on a drawdown notice; keep that cash out of anything you might need to sell on short notice.
• If you hold the 12.0% preferred: it accrues daily at 12.0% and the company may redeem it at 100% of $3,000 plus accrued dividends. The $300 premium applied only before the second anniversary of issuance on September 26, 2026 (our reading), so it can now be redeemed without a premium.
• Taxes: the fund intends to be a RIC, so its distributions are taxable to holders in the way its year-end reporting describes. See our guides to estimated tax payments for REIT, BDC and K-1 income and 1099-DIV due dates for non-traded vehicles.
• Compare other private BDCs: Third Point Private Capital Partners (a first-year fund with a repurchase-agreement leverage structure), SCP Private Credit Income BDC (a fund whose term has ended), the non-traded BDC list and our explainer on what a BDC is.

If a large part of your savings sits in one private BDC with a listing date years away, a conversation with a qualified adviser about how it fits the rest of your holdings may be worth having.

FAQ

All figures are from SEC EDGAR filings of 5C Lending Partners Corp. (CIK 1998387) read on November 4, 2026: the Forms 10-Q for September 30, 2026 (accession 0001193125-26-446650), June 30, 2026 (0001193125-26-334649) and March 31, 2026 (0001193125-26-208562), and the Form 10-K for 2025 (0001193125-26-093475). The last filing on this CIK was the Form 10-Q of November 4, 2026. Ratios, sums, percentages, implied share prices and the worked example are our arithmetic. This is analysis of public documents, not investment, legal or tax advice.