Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Jane Street is in talks to refinance its debt with a small group of investors including Pimco in a landmark private credit deal that would help the secretive trading firm boost its AI investments.
The deal would shift its $11bn debt load from public markets into a private vehicle, according to people briefed on the matter. The size of the loan could be upsized and come as soon as next week, one person added.
Jane Street’s talks with investors come as the firm has generated booming trading revenues as it seizes on volatility in markets and muscles in on Wall Street giants such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs. It has also made sizeable investments in AI to support its trading, including data centres and other technology.
A shift towards private markets would also allow the proprietary trading firm to limit disclosures on its financials, which it currently reports quarterly to a large group of debt holders.
Jane Street and Pimco both declined to comment.
While Jane Street trades its own capital and does not accept outside funds from investors, the group and rival outfits such as Citadel Securities have borrowed from debt capital markets in order to fuel their operations.
Pimco has looked to use its heft in credit markets and its ties to German financial services giant Allianz, its parent company, to help land marquee financing mandates. Increasingly, groups such as Pimco, Apollo Global and Blackstone are underwriting corporate loans by themselves or with the help of a handful of third parties.
Despite its historic focus on publicly traded fixed income, Pimco has led a spate of high-profile private transactions in recent months to boost investment returns.
It was unclear what investors, including the Newport Beach, California, bond firm, would charge to provide the multibillion-dollar financing, but Jane Street’s interest costs could increase as part of the move.
Borrowing from the private market typically costs at least 0.25 percentage points more for an investment-grade company, according to US-based capital market bankers.
Jane Street was set to report its second-quarter earnings to lenders in a few weeks’ time, though a deal with private lenders as soon as next week would preclude that.
In the first quarter, Jane Street generated $16.1bn in trading revenues and net income of $10.3bn, making the firm one of the most profitable on Wall Street. In 2025, it reported revenues of roughly $40bn.
Its ascent has come alongside the electronification and the growth of financial markets in the US and Asia. In recent years, it has expanded its strategies from high-speed trading to longer-term bets, including sizeable private investments in AI businesses such as Thinking Machines Lab and Anthropic.
Last week, the trading firm helped CoreWeave secure $2.6bn in loans partly guaranteed by its AI compute contracts.
It also invested in 24-year-old AI wunderkind Leopold Aschenbrenner’s hedge fund, Situational Awareness, which was forced to sell a massive portfolio of equity stakes to hedge fund Citadel after the highly leveraged investment vehicle lost significant value in the latest sell-off.
Additional reporting by Antoine Gara
