The 2017 fundraising of the third vintage took place over just five months and includes €4.2bn of new commitments.
ICG’s second vintage fund for the Senior Debt Partners strategy (€3bn) was raised in July 2015 and is already over 95% invested across c.40 deals, hence the latest fund raise. The latest commitments that have been raised will largely follow the same investment strategy as the previous vintages and will invest primarily in directly originated senior secured loans to European mid-market corporate borrowers. They will focus on a diversified portfolio of loans to established corporate borrowers led by strong management teams principally in the UK and Europe.
The 2017 fund raise was significantly oversubscribed and received strong support from both new and existing investors, with particularly high levels of interest from European and UK pension funds.
The increased level of commitment for the strategy will allow the firm to access larger deals which are not currently served by other players.
Max Mitchell, Head of Senior Direct Lending Europe at ICG, said:
“We’ve clearly seen a period of rapid expansion in direct lending over the last two years as the shift away from traditional bank lending continues. However, at the same time, we have seen investors become more selective and sophisticated, with a flight to quality managers and far greater emphasis on performance and experience in deploying capital. “An important part of our approach is in ensuring we size the fund to meet the investment opportunities available. This same rigour has supported our ability to deploy the previous funds despite some challenging market dynamics”, he added.
Benoit Durteste, Chief Investment Officer and Chief Executive Officer of ICG, added:
“An increasingly diversified investor base underpins our ability to scale proven, successful strategies such as SDP but also Mezzanine and Strategic Equity, which recently held a close for its Strategic Secondaries II Fund at US$1.1bn. This shows our commitment to growing the platform while continuing to deliver for our investors by maintaining a focus on downside risk.”
ICG entered the senior direct lending market in 2011 and since then has become an established market leader in Europe. With this latest raise, ICG now manages north of €27bn globally.
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