Caroline Mandl
NEW YORK (Reuters) – GoldenTree Asset Management has raised more than $1.35 billion for its first pure-play private credit fund, the company said in a statement on Monday, gaining a strong foothold in a booming market.
The firm, which has $53 billion in assets under management, has already invested $6 billion in private credit through its other fixed income funds over the past decade, but it has never launched a fund entirely dedicated to the asset class that would benefit from banks . refusal of lending in recent years to preserve capital.
The fund, which began receiving contributions in 2022, has attracted nearly half of the capital raised and generated a net return of 22%, according to the statement. To date, the fund has provided loans to approximately 30 companies in ten industries.
A source familiar with the situation said GoldenTree’s fund is lending to large companies in the US and Europe with annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) above $500 million, but without signing large checks for each of them individually. .
Lee Cruter, partner and head of credit at GoldenTree, said in a statement that the firm is more focused on transactions that can generate “differentiated risk-adjusted returns” rather than “executing high volume transactions.”
The private credit sector, which has assets of more than $1.6 trillion, is expected to reach $2.8 trillion by 2028, attracting more asset managers and investors to the industry, according to Preqin.
“Private lending continues to see the most innovation across all credit asset classes,” Steve Tananbaum, GoldenTree founder and chief investment officer, said in a statement.