Blue Owl co-CEOs’ personal loans no longer backed by firm shares

[LOS ANGELES] Blue Owl Capital co-chief executive officers Doug Ostrover and Marc Lipschultz have revised the terms of personal loans to remove the company’s shares as collateral, after turmoil in the private credit market hammered the stock’s value in recent months.

The pair had previously pledged more than half of their Blue Owl stakes to secure loans from financial institutions, according to regulatory filings. But in a new disclosure on Friday (Apr 17), Blue Owl said that the executives no longer have any equity interests pledged as collateral.

A representative for the firm declined to comment on the change, which was reported earlier by the Wall Street Journal.

When details of the pledged units were disclosed a year ago, they were worth about US$1.85 billion. Blue Owl has previously said the firm’s shares “could decline materially” if Ostrover and Lipschultz have to sell more of their stock in the event of a margin call, though the same filing added that the loan agreements allow them to “pledge alternative collateral in lieu of the pledged common units”.

In a February statement to Bloomberg News, a Blue Owl spokesperson referred to the obligations as “non-margin loans”, noting that there are “no plans or circumstances that would lead to any sales in the foreseeable future”.

Blue Owl’s shares have plunged more than 60 per cent since January of last year, touching a record low earlier this month. The stock has rallied sharply in recent days amid a broad market rebound, though it has recovered only a small portion of its earlier losses.

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Ostrover and Lipschultz have built massive personal fortunes amid the private credit boom, though their wealth has taken a hit alongside the stock slump. Ostrover has a net worth of US$2.1 billion, down from a peak of US$3.3 billion in January 2025, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Lipschultz is worth US$1.7 billion, down from US$2.5 billion.

The pair, like a number of others in private markets, have used their fortunes to acquire a professional sports franchise, buying a majority stake in the National Hockey League’s Tampa Bay Lightning in October 2024 at a valuation of US$1.8 billion. They also established a family office called Black Owl. BLOOMBERG