This article was written by David Brooke. It appeared first on the Bloomberg Terminal.
Credit Suisse Group AG has raised $1.7 billion of equity commitments for its debut private credit fund, which will focus on providing financing to companies with more than $50 million in annual earnings.
The Private Credit Opportunities fund raised cash from institutional investors and high net-worth individuals, according to a statement Wednesday. Including leverage, the fund has $3 billion to deploy, of which about half has already been invested.
The bank will invest the funds through its asset management arm, according to the statement. It will provide loans across the capital structure, including first- and second- lien secured loans, unitranche loans and preferred-equity financings.
As the private credit market has ballooned to roughly $1.2 trillion, firms sitting on large piles of cash are investing in bigger and bigger deals that traditionally went to the leveraged-loan and high-yield markets. The fund is targeting the upper middle market, which has become a popular destination for a number of the largest private-credit vehicles.
This year has seen a spate of multibillion-dollar loans provided by private-credit firms. These include $5 billion of financing to help fund the leveraged buyout of software maker Zendesk Inc., and a $4.5 billion debt package for Hellman & Friedman’s purchase of a majority stake in Information Resources Inc.