Active commercial lenders sent over $106 billion to AI this week, in the same week the headlines said AI credit was drying up. Every winner had someone vouching for them. Here are the six calls.
The pattern: what active commercial lenders wanted
Elon Musk said debt markets have shut off funding for AI companies without other revenue, per Quartz. Bloomberg reported early signs that credit markets may be nearing their limit on AI. Then the tape showed $106.5B of AI compute financing in Growth Capital alone.
Both stories hold up. Active commercial lenders sent the money to borrowers with someone else backing them, and it avoided the ones without that backing. That rule decided every call below.
| Vertical | Winner | Number | Loser | Number |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CRE | Multifamily | $1.32B / 12 deals | Office | $117M / 2 deals |
| Growth Capital | AI compute | ~$106.5B / 3 deals | Fintech & specialty lending | $511M / 2 deals |
| ABL | GPU & data center equipment | $518M / 5 deals | Consumer & retail | $10.3M / 2 deals |
CRE: apartments got built, office got discounted
Winner — Multifamily, $1.32B
The Talk: Bisnow says rising Treasury yields have sharply altered apartment deal math in the Bay Area. Arbor, a big multifamily mortgage REIT, suspended its dividend, per Bisnow.
The Tape: Commercial real estate lenders and bridge lenders wrote twelve multifamily loans anyway, from PCCP’s $130M grocery-anchored project in Newark to Dwight’s $73M bridge in Reno to Greystone’s $109M Freddie Mac loan on an office-to-apartment conversion in Hollywood, Florida.
The Weather: The CRE macro report says equity recaps are replacing debt refinancing for stabilized apartments, citing the UDR/Apollo $2B venture. The tape shows lenders still writing construction and bridge debt for new and lease-up deals. Those two findings can both be right: owners of stabilized buildings are bringing in equity, while builders are still getting loans.
For a borrower: If you’re building, a construction loan is available. If you own a stabilized building with 2021-era debt, plan on raising equity.
Loser — Office, $117M
The Talk: CoStar revised its forecast and says the office recovery is moving faster than expected.
The Tape: Two office loans. One is a $55M recap from Maxim Capital on a Midtown Manhattan tower, completing a discounted payoff of an $88M CMBS loan that went to special servicing.
The Weather: The CRE macro report rates office distress critical, citing a Boston tower that sold at a foreclosure auction for about a third of its 2019 price and Blackstone Mortgage Trust’s $327.6M quarterly loss.
For a borrower: Trophy buildings with tenants can still borrow. For everything else, expect lenders to talk about payoff discounts and fresh equity.
Growth Capital: the money followed the guarantee
Winner — AI compute, ~$106.5B
Last week US AI infrastructure was my Growth Capital loser.
The Tape: Anthropic’s $63B SPV for Broadcom chips, with Broadcom providing residual value support equal to the whole first lien. SpaceX’s $40B GPU lease from Apollo, backed by Starlink and launch revenue per the deal sheet. And Nebius’s $3.5B from Citi, with more than $40B of long-term customer contracts behind it, per the release.
The Talk vs. the Weather: The Growth Capital macro report says the AI thesis is cracking at the cash-flow level, and it flags Alphabet’s negative free cash flow, only the second time ever. It also notes neocloud financing is described as getting harder. Growth capital lenders agreed with all of it and made each borrower bring a backer.
For a borrower: An AI company without a big partner or contracted revenue should expect short tenors and step-up pricing. Phillips Edison’s grocery-center REIT borrowed at SOFR + 0.80% this week. Nebius paid SOFR + 2.75% and up.
Loser — Fintech & specialty lending, $511M
The Tape: Down from $1.83B across six deals last week. And only £50M of Lovey’s £250M Pollen Street facility is committed; the rest is an accordion that may or may not get used.
The Weather: Fitch has the US private credit default rate at a record 6.3%, and the Growth Capital macro report notes half of those defaults are PIK or interest deferrals. That’s stress hiding in plain sight inside the private credit lenders that fund other lenders.
For a borrower: I don’t know yet if this is a pullback or a slow week. Ask me in a month. If you run a lending platform, line up your next facility early.
ABL: GPUs became collateral and consumer goods went quiet
Winner — GPU & data center equipment, $518M, 85% of ABL volume.
The Tape: Wingspire led a $363M equipment financing that refinanced IREN’s GPU servers and returned capital to the company. USD.AI, Silver Point and Victory Park lent $106M against 1,728 Nvidia GPUs for NexGen Cloud. Rosenthal added three cloud and data center equipment lines totaling $49M.
The Talk: Nvidia’s CEO said its GPUs can stay in service up to eight years and that the residual value helps unlock financing, per Digitimes. This is Jevons Paradox in credit form: when an asset lasts longer, lenders get comfortable lending more against it.
The Weather (and the contradiction): The ABL macro report says data center equipment is losing some of its exit-value certainty and recommends an independent NOLV refresh before year-end. NOLV is net orderly liquidation value: what the lender gets if it has to sell the collateral. So the macro report is warning about the exact collateral that took 85% of the week’s ABL volume.
For a borrower: Asset-based lenders will finance GPUs now. Expect your lender to order a fresh appraisal, and expect advance rates to track it.
Loser — Consumer & retail, $10.3M
The Tape: A $9M working capital factoring line for a fragrance and home goods brand and a $1.3M PO facility for a pet products company, plus Assembled Brands’ undisclosed revolver for a skincare brand. Last week, department stores alone pulled $1.30B.
The Weather: The ABL macro report says September retail sales were up 6.3% year over year, but the control group rose just 0.1%, a sign underlying consumer demand is softening. It also flags freight rates up 137% year over year, which raises the landed cost of imported inventory faster than its liquidation value.
For a borrower: My guess is holiday lines were set weeks ago and nobody announces mid-season. If you’re import-heavy, expect your lender to refresh your inventory appraisal.
So what for you
Active commercial lenders spent this week asking every borrower the same question: who else is standing behind this? Broadcom, Starlink revenue, investment-grade contracts, condo buyers with deposits down and GPUs with an eight-year life all counted as an answer. Office buildings without tenants and consumer brands without a holiday story had no answer, and the tape shows it. That’s the rule that decided which commercial lending deals got done among the most active lenders of October 2026, and The Lender Draft will keep tracking which active commercial lenders hold to it.
Counts reflect closed financings announced October 20 to 26, 2026 and tracked by The Lender Draft. Amounts are as announced; multi-lender shares are equal-split estimates where the lender breakdown wasn’t disclosed.
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