Feature, not a Bug: Understanding Gates in Alternative Investments | Beyond the Funds Spotlight

Executive Summary

A redemption gate temporarily limits the pace at which investors can withdraw capital from a fund. Far from being a warning sign, gates are a standard structural safeguard—disclosed in every fund’s offering documents from inception—and a prerequisite for capturing the illiquidity premium that alternative strategies are designed to deliver. They exist to protect all investors, departing and remaining alike, from the destructive consequences of forced asset liquidation. In the current environment, where several private credit funds have activated gates, it is important to understand this mechanism as the system working exactly as designed.

The Elephant in the Room

Headlines in recent quarters have highlighted gating across several prominent private credit vehicles and non-traded BDCs. For investors accustomed to daily liquidity in public markets, a delayed redemption can feel alarming. However, context matters: we are at a point in the credit cycle where underlying loan portfolios are less liquid, deal activity has slowed, and some borrowers are negotiating extensions. In this environment, gates are not a symptom of distress—they are the disciplined, pre-planned response to it.This is a recurring feature of market cycles, not a novel crisis. A highly visible precedent played out with the Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust (BREIT): when redemption requests spiked, BREIT implemented its gates, giving managers time to generate liquidity organically without selling prime assets at steep discounts. Eventually, the backlog cleared and the portfolio’s value was preserved. The mechanism functioned precisely as intended.Regulators are also reinforcing this message. On 26 March 2026, the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) issued a letter to all authorised fund managers reminding them of the importance of maintaining liquidity management tools such as redemption gates — not merely as a disclosure item, but as an operational capability that should be "ready and capable of being deployed in a timely manner." Notably, the DFSA explicitly calls on firms to consider "investor fairness, and the potential harm caused to remaining investors" when activating these tools. This is a regulator affirming that robust liquidity management tools — of which gates are a key example — are a fiduciary expectation, not a sign of weakness. ‍

Why Gates Exist: Bridging the Liquidity Mismatch

The core value proposition of alternative investments is capturing the illiquidity premium—deploying capital into complex, longer-term strategies that traditional long only funds in public markets cannot easily access. Gates ensure that this value proposition is not undermined by short-term liquidity demands. The rationale varies by strategy, but the underlying principle is the same.

Private Credit & Evergreen Structures

The mismatch is most acute here. If a fund invests in a three-year private corporate loan, it cannot demand that the borrower repay the loan tomorrow simply because an investor wants to cash out. While evergreen or semi-liquid structures offer periodic withdrawal windows, the underlying assets remain fundamentally illiquid. Gates bridge this reality, aligning the liquidity offered to the investor with the actual liquidity profile of the portfolio.

Hedge Funds

Many hedge funds invest in highly liquid assets like public equities yet still employ gates. The reasons are twofold. First, strategy preservation: if a manager is executing a complex arbitrage or a long-term distressed debt play, forced liquidations disrupt the thesis and generate unnecessary trading costs. Second, behavioural protection: during periods of sharp volatility, human nature dictates a flight to cash. Gates prevent panicked, short-term capital flight from forcing the fund to sell at precisely the wrong time, allowing the strategy to play out and recover. ‍

How Gating Works in Practice

Gating mechanisms are strictly defined in a fund’s offering documents before any capital is deployed. It is important to note that there are two distinct types, and they usually operate entirely independently of one another.‍

Managers will typically communicate a clear timeline, a queue position, and a process update to affected investors throughout. ‍

The Protection Mechanism: Preserving Value for All

This is the critical point. A gate is not a one-sided restriction—it is a two-sided protection. Without it, a surge in redemption requests would force a manager into a fire sale: dumping the most liquid, highest-quality assets at steep discounts to raise cash quickly.

In short, without gates, the first investor to redeem wins at everyone else’s expense. Gates eliminate this “first-mover advantage” problem and align the interests of all investors in the vehicle.

Lighthouse Canton Perspective

When we allocate capital to alternative strategies, the presence of a well-designed gate is not a red flag—it is a prerequisite. It is the very mechanism that allows managers to confidently deploy capital into complex, less liquid strategies in the first place. We assess gating provisions—thresholds, communication protocols, queue mechanics—as part of our standard due diligence on every fund on the shelf. The recent DFSA guidance on liquidity management tools further validates this approach, underscoring that gates should be operationally ready and deployed with investor fairness as the primary consideration. We would, in fact, be more concerned by a fund that promises full liquidity on inherently illiquid assets without any protective mechanism. When a gate activates, it is not a malfunction — it is the mechanism performing exactly the function it was built for.

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