Blue Owl co-founders no longer pledging shares for personal loans

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Blue Owl co-founders Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz disclosed they were no longer using their shares in the investment group as collateral for personal loans, removing an overhang on the company’s stock.

Blue Owl has been hard hit by redemption requests from several of its flagship private credit funds and is in the process of winding down an older vehicle.

“No equity interests in the company are currently subject to any pledges by our directors or executive officers,” Blue Owl said in annual shareholder materials filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

Ostrover’s and Lipschultz’s loans allowed them to provide alternative collateral, company filings show. Blue Owl had previously warned that a foreclosure and sale of their interests in the company could “materially” hit its stock.

Shares of Blue Owl, which manages more than $300bn, have slid more than 40 per cent over the past year as investors have soured on its growth prospects and the challenges facing the private credit industry.

While the company’s stock has rebounded off its lows, it remains below $10 a share, the price it went public at in 2021.

Filings showed co-chief executive and chair Ostrover had pledged 43mn common units of Blue Owl to a financial institution to secure his loan at the end of last year. Those common units can be exchanged for an equal number of publicly traded shares in the investment group.

Those units were worth $649mn at the end of 2025 but have tumbled in value alongside the sell-off in Blue Owl’s stock.

Lipschultz, Blue Owl’s co-chief executive, had secured his loan with 33mn common units, worth about $493mn at the end of 2025.

Investors have worried that the declining value of the stock could trigger margin calls for the two men, which would add further pressure to the stock if it was foreclosed on by a lender and dumped on the market, according to people briefed on the matter.