Interval and Tender Offer Fund Market Reaches New Milestones, Sees Interval Fund Dominance and Shift Toward Greater Investor Accessibility
CHICAGO, Oct. 16, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — XA Investments LLC (“XAI”), an alternative investment management and consulting firm, announced the publication of its latest research report, the XAI Non-Listed Closed-End Fund Third Quarter 2025 Market Update. The report covers interval fund market trends and notes that marketwide fund counts exceed 300 funds, a milestone that shows the dominance of daily valued interval funds due to demand for greater investor accessibility.
“The interval and tender offer fund market reached a major milestone of 304 funds, showing the increased popularity of interval and tender offer funds in recent years,” stated Kimberly Flynn, the president of XAI. “As more assets continue to flow into the interval / tender offer fund market, we believe the market’s trajectory will remain positive, with significant opportunities for expansion throughout the rest of the year and in 2026,” she added.
XAI’s market update is a comprehensive research report detailing current market trends and industry highlights. The non-listed closed-end fund (CEF) market includes all interval and tender offer funds. The report highlights new fund sponsors entering the interval fund market and gives a comprehensive market update.
The non-listed CEF market now stands at a combined net assets of $215 billion and $252 billion in total managed assets, inclusive of leverage, as of September 30, 2025. The market includes 158 interval funds which comprise 58% of the total managed assets at $145.9 billion and 146 tender offer funds which comprise the other 42% with $105.7 billion in total managed assets. Market-wide net assets increased $19 billion in Q3 2025 from the prior quarter.
Daily valued interval funds have now overtaken the number of tender offer funds in the market, because of strong investor preference for electronic ticketing. In Q3 2025, 20 new funds entered the market, 70% of which were interval funds. Among the new funds launched in Q3 2025, there were seven new fund sponsors, including Adams Street Partners, Blue Owl, and Coatue.
Alternative investment firms continue to dominate the interval fund market with 69% market share. In total, there are 157 unique fund sponsors in the interval and tender offer fund space, with 57 fund sponsors that have two or more interval and/or tender offer funds currently in the market. Twenty new funds launched this quarter, with the most, 11 funds, launching in the credit category. Newly launched non-listed CEFs spent around seven months in the SEC registration process.
“The number of funds in the SEC registration process decreased by 10 funds from 51 at the end of Q2 2025 to 41 at the end of Q3 2025. This is due to the high number of funds launching and the slowing number of new registrations,” Flynn noted. “With the recent government shutdown, the time spent in the SEC registration process will likely increase, as initial registration statements will not be reviewed and Statements of Effectiveness will not be issued. New funds also cannot secure EDGAR codes and therefore must wait to file with the SEC,” she added.
As the interval fund market expands and diversifies, the market share of the top 20 funds continues to decrease, falling to 58% in Q3 2025 from 59% in Q2 2025. In aggregate, the top 20 largest interval/tender offer funds accounted for 38% of total net flows including many of the market leaders such as the Cliffwater Corporate Lending Fund, Partners Group Private Equity, LLC, and ACAP Strategic Fund.
In the report, XAI covers the Q2 2025 net flows which are lagged by reporting cycles. Interval and tender offer funds had positive net flows, totaling over $13 billion, with 63% of funds reporting positive net flows. Funds with a monthly net asset value (NAV) performed well in Q2 2025, accounting for 49% of net flows, up from 37% in Q1 2025. Daily NAV funds continued to perform well in Q2 2025, also accounting for 49% of net flows.
At 55%, the majority of interval and tender offer funds do not have any suitability restrictions for investors imposed at the fund level with 26% of funds available to accredited investors and 19% only available to qualified clients. Since the change in a SEC staff position in Q2 2025, 16 funds have filed prospectus supplements removing accredited investor requirements. As the accredited investor designation is now largely self-imposed, XAI expects to see the number of funds with accredited investor limitations to decrease and the number of funds with no suitability restrictions to increase.
According to Flynn, “We expect more funds to reduce their suitability requirements in the next six months and for many new funds filed to forgo accredited investor requirements.” Alternative funds without suitability restrictions also prove to be more accessible and have gathered more assets at $147.7 billion in managed assets or 59% of market-wide assets.
For more information on the interval fund market and to read our full quarterly report on non-listed CEFs, please visit the CEF Market research page linked here and click ‘Subscribe’ for access to XA Investments’ online research portal and pricing information. In addition, please contact [email protected] or 888-903-3358 with questions.
About XA Investments
XA Investments LLC (“XAI”) is a Chicago-based firm founded by XMS Capital Partners in 2016. XAI serves as the investment adviser for two listed closed-end funds and an interval closed-end fund, respectively the XAI Octagon Floating Rate & Alternative Income Trust, the XAI Madison Equity Premium Income Fund, and the Octagon XAI CLO Income Fund. In addition to investment advisory services, the firm also provides investment fund structuring and consulting services focused on registered closed-end funds to meet institutional client needs. XAI offers custom product build and consulting services, including product development and market research, marketing and fund management. XAI believes that the investing public can benefit from new vehicles to access a broad range of alternative investment strategies and managers. For more information, please visit www.xainvestments.com.
Note: Net flows are reported in Form NPORT-P (“NPORTs”), which are filed quarterly with the SEC. NPORT filings are typically lagged 60 days from the end of the reporting period. The net flows data in this report is as of 6/30/2025 and represents the latest publicly available data.
Sources: XA Investments; CEFData.com; SEC Filings.
Notes: All information as of 9/30/2025 unless otherwise noted. Total managed assets is inclusive of leverage. The non-listed CEF market is subject to lags in reporting and limited data availability. Data such as asset levels, net flows, and performance are delayed up to 90 days after quarter-end and are not available for all funds. All data in the report is the most current available. Please contact our team if you have any questions about the non-listed CEF marketplace.
| CONTACT: | Kim Shepherd |
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[email protected] |
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| 312-623-5123 |
