Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund

Price story Before the numbers, the tape. A stock price moves through four repeating seasons: a flat base (stage 1), an advance (2), a top (3), a decline (4). Where the price sits in that cycle frames everything below.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund trades at $15.2, between stages. That is −3.5% against its own 200-day average. It sits at 29% of a 52-week range of $14 to $18. On relative strength it is currently behind the S&P 500 on a trailing-13-week view (44 weeks and counting).

Today the stock is between stages. At $15.2 it trades −3.5% versus its 200-day average and sits at 29% of its 52-week range ($14–$18).

Against the market, two honest reads. Cumulative: over the last 1.1 years the stock moved −21% while the S&P 500 moved +24% — behind the index over the full window. Recent form: on a trailing-13-week view the stock is currently behind (44 weeks and counting) — the ribbon below is that same metric, week by week.

What would end the trend, mechanically: two Friday closes in a row below the 200-day line. That is the exit rule — no debates.

Valuation For a bank we price the book, not the earnings: P/BV is what the market pays for each $1 of the bank's net worth. A bank below 1× book is priced below the value of what it owns, net of what it owes.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund trades at 0.8× P/BV, near the bottom of its own range — cheaper only 18% of the time. Its long-run median P/BV is 0.8×, measured across 1.1 years of weekly readings. This places the multiple against the stock’s own record, and says nothing about what the business is worth.

Today's P/BV of 0.8× is near the bottom of its own range — cheaper only 18% of the time, against a long-run median of 0.8× measured over 1.1 years of weekly readings. This is a comparison against the stock's own history — not a claim about what it is worth.

The honest context for that discount: a bank earning about 5% on its equity is worth less per dollar of book, and the market has priced that in rather than overlooked it. The discount closes only if the returns themselves improve.

Why the multiple sits where it does: over the past year book value grew while the price moved −18.1% — price and book moved together, holding the multiple in its range.

Put together: the multiple is low against its own past, so the story rests on the book-value line underneath it, not the multiple.

Stage: Deteriorating Every business sits somewhere on a fundamental arc, and this page names the spot before anything else. The last twelve quarters of revenue, profit and EPS growth — plus the return the business earns on its capital — are read as curves: Deteriorating (the curves are falling), Turning around (a trough has just formed and the last few quarters lift off it), Improving (the climb off the trough is sustained), Consistent (steadily positive with healthy returns), Topping out (still high but decelerating from the peak). When the curves genuinely disagree the read is Mixed; too little history is No read. CAGR (compound annual growth rate) is the smooth yearly pace that turns the starting value into the latest one — the fairest way to compare growth across different time spans. Read the columns together: if the 1-year number towers over the 10-year, recent growth is running hotter than the long-run trend. A dash means that window is not held, or the base year was a loss (where a growth rate is not meaningful).

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund reads as deteriorating on its fundamental arc. Deteriorating — revenue, profit and EPS growth are shrinking (revenue growth −18.5% latest against +262.5% at its 12-quarter best), ROE holding at 8.3%. The read is built from 12 quarters across 4 curves, on full evidence.

🚨 Why it matters: falling curves mean every cheap-looking ratio below needs a discount for direction.

4-Factor Sector Score

No sector-relative score — Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund is not among the largest members shown in this industry comparison for Asset Management.

The score is a rank WITHIN a peer set: every metric is scored by percentile against the other members. Without the peer set there is no score to state, so none is invented here.

Revenue For a bank, revenue is everything the franchise earns — interest on the loan book plus fees from its businesses.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund reported $0.1 B of income in the Mar 26 quarter, +20.0% year on year. Over 4 years it has compounded at 24.0% a year. The last full year, FY25, came in at $0.3 B. The last four reported quarters add to $0.2 B.

FY25 revenue came in at $0.3 B (−10.3% on the year), capping 4 years at 24.0% compound. The latest quarter (Mar 26) printed $0.1 B, +20.0% year on year.

Pace check: the last four quarters averaged −15.6% growth against the decade's 24.0% — the current year is running slower than its own long-run rate.

Acceleration check: trailing-twelve-month revenue grew −18.5% over the last 4 quarters against −14.4%/yr over the last 8 — rolling over; TTM profit −26.3% vs −23.6%/yr — stabilising.

Net margin Net margin — what the bank keeps of every $100 of revenue after every cost, provision and tax. With big fee businesses in the mix, it is the cleanest margin we can read for this bank.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund's net margin is 66.7% in the Mar 26 quarter, +6.7 percentage points against the same quarter a year ago. Across 5 fiscal years the net margin has ranged 62.5% to 79.3%. The current quarter sits inside that band.

The latest quarter's net margin is 66.7%, +6.7 pp against the same quarter a year ago. Across 5 fiscal years the net margin has ranged 62.5%–79.3%.

Why: the numbers show the net margin move clearly, but the cost lines behind it sit below what we hold — so we state the move without inventing its driver.

Net profit Net profit is what survives every cost, interest and tax — the number EPS, dividends and book value all grow from.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund earned $0.0 B of net profit in the Mar 26 quarter, +33.3% year on year. Full-year FY25 profit was $0.2 B. The 4-year compound rate is 22.5%. That is 66.7% of the quarter's revenue. The same quarter a year earlier earned $0.0 B.

Mar 26 profit was $0.0 B, +33.3% year on year. On the full year, FY25 printed $0.2 B (−18.2%), and the 4-year compound rate is 22.5%.

Why profit moved: revenue contributed +20.0% and the margin +6.7 pp — the quarter was margin-led: most of the profit growth came from keeping more of each sale.

Pace comparison, last four quarters: profit −20.0% vs revenue −15.6%. Profit is growing slower than sales — costs are eating the growth before it reaches the bottom line.

Asset quality — the ladder Gross NPA is the slice of the loan book where repayments have stopped. Net NPA is what remains after the money already set aside against those loans. Falling is healing; rising is damage arriving.

Loan-book quality history is not available for Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund, so this section names the gap rather than estimating a ratio. No gross or net non-performing-asset series is filed in a form this page can read, and none is inferred from the profit line. The income, margin and return sections above carry the evidence this business does report.

We do not hold quarterly loan-book quality numbers for this bank, so this section states that plainly rather than working around it.

Why: loan-book quality is the engine room of a bank, and its drivers — slippages, recoveries, provisioning — sit below what we hold for this name; the sections around it carry the reads we can stand behind.

The loan book We read the loan book through revenue — when the book and the businesses grow, revenue grows with them. It is a rough proxy, and we say so: rate moves and fee swings can shift it a few points in any one year.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund's revenue grew −10.3% in FY25 to $0.3 B, so the book is flat. The latest quarter ran +20.0% year on year. The net margin on that income is 66.7%, +6.7 percentage points against a year ago.

FY25 revenue was $0.3 B, −10.3% on the year, and the latest quarter ran +20.0% year on year. The net margin on that revenue is 66.7% this quarter (+6.7 pp YoY) — growth with a widening margin on it.

The synthesis: a lender compounds when the book grows while the margin holds and the loan book stays clean — with quarterly loan-quality numbers missing here, revenue growth and margin are the two we watch.

Returns on equity and assets Two numbers rate a bank: ROE — what it earns on shareholder money — and ROA — what it earns on everything it deploys. ROE above ~13–15% earns its keep; below that, growth builds book slowly.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund earns a return on equity of 10% in FY25. Its trough over the ladder below was 4% in FY22. On the asset side every $100 of the balance sheet earned about $4.94, which is the return before leverage is applied.

FY25 ROE came in at 10%, recovered from a FY22 trough of 4%. On assets, the latest reading is about 4.94% — every $100 the bank deploys earns roughly $4.94 a year. That return is below the bar a bank must clear to compound book value quickly — which is also the honest reason the stock trades where it does.

Why ROE moved: profit compounded 22.5% a year over 4 years while the equity base grew more slowly — earnings recovering faster than book value builds is what lifts ROE off a trough.

Dividend A dividend is cash paid out per share. Dividend per share is the declared amount for the period; the trailing twelve-month total is the four most recent quarters added together.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund paid $1.95 per share over the last four reported quarters, down 10.0% on a year ago. The most recent declaration was $0.45 for Mar 26. Against the current price of $15.2 that is a trailing yield of 12.83%, measured on dividends already paid rather than on a forecast.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund paid $1.95 per share across the last four reported quarters, most recently $0.45 for Mar 26. That is down 10.0% against the same quarter a year earlier. Against the current price of $15.2 the trailing twelve months work out to 12.83% — trailing dividends measured against today's price, not a forward estimate.

Debt

For a bank, borrowings are raw material, not a warning sign — solvency is read through the returns and the loan book. A manufacturer’s debt is a claim against its profits, so the debt-to-equity lens that works everywhere else misleads on a lender and is not applied here.

A manufacturer’s debt is a claim against its profits; a bank’s borrowings are its inventory — money taken in to be lent out. The debt lens that works everywhere else misleads here, so this page does not apply it. The solvency questions for a bank — is the loan book sound, is the equity earning — are read through the loan-book and returns sections above.

Ownership There is no quarter-by-quarter holder register to read here, so we read the crowd through short interest — the slice of tradable shares currently sold short, positioned for a fall.

No ownership or positioning reading is held for Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund, so this section names the gap rather than filling it. At typical trading volumes those positions would take about 7.9 days to buy back. There is no quarter-by-quarter holder register to read for this filer, so the crowd is read through short interest instead.

We hold no ownership or positioning reading for this stock, so this section says that plainly.

Safety line The Z-score estimates how far a company sits from balance-sheet distress — above roughly 3 is safe, below roughly 1.8 is the danger zone. It was built for manufacturers, so it is not applied to banks and lenders.

Morgan Stanley Direct Lending Fund: the Z-score is omitted — it was built for manufacturers, not banks, and applying it here would be theatre. The Z-score was built for manufacturers and is not applied to banks and lenders, so solvency here is read from the capital and asset-quality lines instead.

The safety line in one sentence: the Z-score is omitted — it was built for manufacturers, not banks, and applying it here would be theatre.

Frequently asked questions