Allianz Global Investors has held the second close of the European Private Credit II (EPC II), having raised EUR290 million of commitments in 2020.
AllianzGI’s second corporate private debt fund open to third party investors, EPC II attracted commitments from German, French, Austrian and Italian insurers and corporate pension funds alongside Allianz group entities.
EPC II provides investors the opportunity to access pan-European mid-market direct lending through a senior only debt strategy. It predominantly targets transactions in France and Germany, with diversification achieved through investments across Continental Europe. The strategy’s focus lies on privately negotiated and structured loans for mid-sized companies that are characterised by their financial soundness and promising growth prospects. EPC II fund has a target size of EUR400 million with a cap of EUR500 million. The fund is offered exclusively to European institutional investors.
EPC II is one of the funds managed by the European Private Credit team, led by Damien Guichard and composed of 7 investment professionals based in Paris and Munich. AllianzGI has executed a total of 53 transactions across Europe worth cEUR 1.4 billion of invested capital for Allianz and third party investors. This team is part of AllianzGI’s private debt division, which currently comprises more than 60 investment professionals and manages nearly €33 billion in assets.
“The Covid-19 crisis will result in banks’ balance sheets becoming increasingly stretched, leaving more space for alternative lenders. EPC II is ideally positioned to accompany borrowers in their growth plans whilst providing an attractive risk -return proposition to institutional investors ” says Damien Guichard, Head of European Private Credit at AllianzGI.
“Following the successful closing of EPC I, the success of EPC II demonstrates investors’ significant appetite for private corporate debt, in particular in the SME space, and more broadly for real assets like infrastructure and impact investments. With Allianz’s backing we have pioneered a number of innovative new private market strategies, and are delighted to now be able to offer this deep expertise to our broader institutional client base,” says Deborah Zurkow, Global Head of Investments at AllianzGI.
Alternative strategies are one of the four pillars of AllianzGI’s global investment platform alongside equities, bonds and multi-asset strategies. As a result of the strong growth in assets under management since the creation of this pillar in 2014, Allianz Global Investors now manages over EUR77 billion of alternative assets on behalf of institutional and private clients worldwide.
