New Research Finds the Private Equity Exit Window Did Not Open — but the Portfolio Aged Anyway, and Deferred Operational Capital Is Why Some Assets Will Not Clear When It Does

First National Capital Corporation mid-year analysis finds distributions have held below 15 percent of net asset value for a record fourth consecutive year, and argues sponsors treating the extended hold as an operating mandate — not a waiting room — will exit first and at better multiples First National Capital Corporation, one of the largest […]

The Covenant You Accepted in 2021 Gets Negotiated by Your Buyer in 2029

Structural concessions are made when the exit feels theoretical. At a seven-year hold, it stops being theoretical rather sooner than anyone planned. Financing decisions at portfolio companies are made under a particular kind of time distortion. The transaction in front of you is immediate and concrete. The exit is a slide in a fund model. […]

The Asset You Are Waiting to Sell Is Getting Harder to Sell

Extending a hold assumes the value is static. In equipment-intensive businesses, it never was. The logic of waiting out a bad exit market is straightforward enough. Multiples are compressed, buyers are cautious, the bid-ask spread is too wide, and taking a process to market now means accepting a price that does not reflect what the […]

Every Automation Project You Deferred Funded an Add-On. That Was a Choice.

When operational capital and acquisition capital draw on the same facility, the allocation meeting has already been decided before anyone walks in. Ask an operating partner whether they have systematically underinvested in their portfolio companies’ equipment base and you will get an immediate and sincere no. Ask them to name the last three capital allocation […]

New Research Finds Business Aircraft Buyers Who Waited for a Softer Market Got a Tighter One — and Were Out-Processed, Not Outbid

IRVINE, Calif. — August 19, 2026 — First National Capital Corporation, one of the largest independent providers of capital equipment and project financing in North America, today released Nothing Good Stays Listed, a mid-year research report examining how the business aviation market rewarded buyers who could execute through the first half of 2026 — and […]

High Hours Are Not the Risk. Bad Records Are.

Most underwriting reads utilization as wear and charter as diluted control. Both readings are backwards, and they are excluding good aircraft from good buyers. There is a reflex in aircraft lending that has calcified into something close to doctrine: hours are bad. The more an airframe has flown, the more cautious the file becomes. Charter […]

The Residual Is Not a Question About Your Credit

Two identical aircraft, two identical borrowers, wildly different payments. The variable is the lessor — and almost nobody asks about it. An owner evaluating an operating lease against a loan will typically approach it as a question about themselves. What is my tax position? How long do I intend to hold? What does my balance […]

98 Days on Market Means the Good Aircraft Never Reached the Market

Rising time-to-sale reads like a cooling market. It is describing the opposite, and the distinction determines whether you are a bidder or a spectator. Average time on market for preowned business aircraft reached 98 days on a trailing-twelve-month basis this spring, up more than 11 percent year over year. Read in isolation, that is a […]

The Most Rigorous Price Forecast in Energy Had a Three-Week Shelf Life, New Research Says Operators Should Stop Building Capital Plans That Require One

IRVINE, Calif. — August 12, 2026 — First National Capital Corporation, a leading independent provider of capital equipment and project financing, today released The Three-Week Window, a midyear research report examining how U.S. oil and gas operators deployed capital during a first half in which crude prices moved more than $45 in four months. The […]

Gas Does Not Care About Hormuz

While crude traversed a $45 range twice, the natural gas story barely moved. That is not a coincidence — and it is the closest thing to a planning assumption available in energy right now. Everything about energy in 2026 has been narrated through the Persian Gulf. Crude above $110 in March. Mid-$60s in early July. […]