Middle market

The middle market is the segment of companies between SMEs and large listed corporates. The term comes from the US credit market. In France, the closest statistical category is the intermediate sized company (entreprise de taille intermédiaire, ETI). Insee, the French national statistics institute, defines an ETI as a company with 250 to 4,999 employees whose turnover does not exceed €1.5bn or whose balance sheet total does not exceed €2bn. A company with fewer than 250 employees that exceeds €50m of turnover and €43m of balance sheet total is classified as an ETI. Lenders divide the middle market by the borrower’s EBITDA and speak of lower, core and upper mid market, with boundaries specific to each fund. This segment forms the core of direct lending: BlackRock describes direct lending as first ranking loans granted to middle market companies, and the European Central Bank observes that private credit finances unrated mid-sized companies. In France, the average ticket of corporate private debt transactions reached €43m in 2025 according to France Invest and Deloitte. For a company in this segment, the absence of a credit rating steers the search for financing towards banks, Euro PPs and debt funds.

An ETI with 1,200 employees generating €400m of turnover and €45m of EBITDA falls within the statistical definition of an ETI. It has no credit rating and seeks €150m from debt funds specialising in this segment.

• The EBITDA size each lender uses to define its segment
• The ticket the lender holds alone
• The effect of having no rating on access to the bond market
• The level of leverage accepted by sector