Prestige Funds sees direct lending assets pass $100 million

Direct lending specialist Prestige Funds has raised over $100 million in assets from institutional investors in the UK and beyond, as investors increasingly use direct lending to find yield and diversify.

Prestige’s Commercial Finance Opportunities (CFO) fund uses the expertise of a large direct lending team of nearly 100 staff at Nucleus Commercial Finance, which focuses on secured lending to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), mainly in the UK. Nucleus is part-owned by Prestige and lends to companies in the construction, manufacturing, engineering sectors, and specialist service industries such as recruitment and IT. Craig Reeves, the founder of Prestige Funds, commented: “Demand for private lending strategies is picking up around the world, and the growth in CFO’s assets is testament to this. Investors are looking for real assets strategies that are not correlated to public markets, many of which have increased in volatility over the past year. The growth of this fund demonstrates the international appetite for commercial lending strategies which can be carried out and supervised by experienced teams.”