Goat Brand Labs is proposing to extend the maturity of US$17 million of private debt to September 2028 from December 2027, while also requesting BlackRock to forgo a 6% annual cash coupon, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. The deal, which has a so-called payment-in-kind structure, is expected to generate an internal rate of return of about 16%, the documents added.

A spokesperson for BlackRock declined to comment. Goat Brand Labs’ founders Rishi Vasudev and Rameswar Misra didn’t respond to requests for comment, while a call to Goat Brand Labs went unanswered. 

The talks with Goat Brand come at a challenging time for BlackRock as it faces headwinds in building out its private credit operations in the region. The firm’s head of Australasia private credit departed last month, it is trying to recoup money from a loan in China and it failed to reach a fundraising target. 

In the US, a publicly traded private credit fund of BlackRock has also struggled after a series of troubled investments forced it to mark down the net value of its assets twice this year.

In its Indian investment, Goat Brand is confronting a near-term liquidity mismatch driven by a slowdown in brand monetisation due to a weaker M&A backdrop, according to the document seen by Bloomberg. The company, based in Bengaluru in southeast India, has already breached a March 26 monetisation milestone that resulted in a delayed interest payment, the document showed.

Goat Brand obtained the loan in July 2024 from BlackRock’s APCO Fund II, according to another document seen by Bloomberg. 

Still, the underlying operating performance of Goat Brand’s core portfolio remains resilient, the document stated.

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