BlueBay closes senior loan fund at over £3 billion

Fixed income specialist BlueBay Asset Management has announced the final close of its senior loan fund at £3 billion in investable capital, including leverage. This is above the initial target and BlueBay attributes this to strong support from new and existing institutional investors around the world.

BlueBay said the fund will provide loans to upper mid-market European businesses as a replacement to bank finance, which has cut lending. It will use a range of financing solutions, including leveraged buyouts, M&A, corporate financing, growth financing and re-financing. The fund aims to complement BlueBay’s direct lending by concentrating on larger, senior debt deals with less leverage. It is part of BlueBay’s private debt platform, which has £7 billion in assets and has successfully completed more than 55 transactions across nine countries since 2011. BlueBay head of private debt, Anthony Fobel, commented: “We are delighted with the strong response from major institutional investors globally to our senior loan fund. We continue to see a very strong pipeline of investment opportunities across Europe as economies pick up, M&A markets remain strong and the structural shift towards alternative lenders accelerates.”