Len Tannenbaum, the man who built Fifth Street Asset Management into a $5B behemoth before selling it to Oaktree, is getting back in the game. The founder of Tannenbaum Capital Group is planning a new business development company alongside his son Adam, targeting the sprawling $1.8 trillion private credit market at a moment when cracks are starting to show.
The timing is not accidental. Spreads are widening, leverage is climbing, and an increasingly popular loan structure called payment-in-kind, or PIK, is raising eyebrows across the industry.
A family affair in a stressed market
The new BDC will focus on lower-middle-market companies, specifically businesses generating between $5 million and $25 million in EBITDA. That’s the financial sweet spot where companies are big enough to need serious capital but small enough that the mega-funds often overlook them.
The specific fund size, launch timeline, and structural details haven’t been disclosed. But Tannenbaum’s track record gives some indication of scale. He previously grew Fifth Street Asset Management to roughly $5 billion in assets under management before Oaktree Capital acquired it in 2017. His current vehicle, Tannenbaum Capital Group, manages around $1 billion.
