BXSL's Third-Quarter Dividend Coverage Falls to 88%

The Tip Desk · November 10, 2026 · 2 min read

Net investment income of $0.68 a share covered only 88% of the $0.77 regular dividend as the specialty lender booked $158 million of NII.

Blackstone Secured Lending Fund (BXSL), a specialty finance company that invests primarily in the debt of private U.S. companies, reported net investment income of $158 million, or $0.68 a share, for the third quarter of 2026, down from $0.75 a share in the second quarter. The annualized net investment income return was 10.7% on net asset value.

The regular dividend remained $0.77 a share. Coverage of that payout by net investment income was 88%, and the annualized dividend yield on ending net asset value was 12.2%. Chief Executive Officer Brad Marshall said results were supported by a predominantly first-lien, floating-rate portfolio, with borrowers generally continuing to demonstrate earnings growth.

Net income was $117 million, or $0.50 a share, compared with $0.04 a share in the prior quarter. Total return was 2.2% for the quarter and 10.5% annualized inception to date. Net asset value was approximately $5.9 billion, or $25.25 a share, versus $25.53 a share at June 30, 2026.

Deployment slowed. New investment commitments were $0.2 billion at par, with $0.2 billion funded, after new investment activity exceeded $300 million in the second quarter. Proceeds from sales and repayments were $0.7 billion. Net funded investment activity was $(0.4) billion. The average new investment commitment was $21 million; the fund added five new portfolio companies and exited 12.

Investments at fair value declined to $12.9 billion from $13.4 billion at June 30, 2026. The portfolio remained 95.8% first-lien senior secured debt and 95.1% floating rate, with an average loan-to-value of 49.2% across 306 portfolio companies. Non-accrual debt investments were 2.1% of investments at fair market value, or 2.8% on amortized cost. The weighted average yield on performing debt investments at fair value rose to 9.6% from 9.4% at the prior quarter-end.

Liquidity stood at $2.6 billion of unrestricted cash and undrawn debt, with $2.5 billion available to borrow. Ending debt-to-equity was 1.22x, or 1.20x net of cash, and average debt-to-equity was 1.26x. The total all-in cost of debt was 5.14% in the quarter, with a weighted average interest rate of 5.06%.

The board declared a fourth-quarter 2026 dividend of $0.77 a share to shareholders of record as of December 31, 2026, payable on or about January 22, 2027, and a first-quarter 2027 dividend of $0.60 a share to shareholders of record as of March 31, 2027.