Investment managers Pengana Capital Group and Washington H Soul Pattinson (WHSP) have teamed up to launch a managed fund allowing Australian investors to take advantage of global opportunities in the private credit sector.
The new product will grant retail investors access to a highly diversified portfolio of best-of-breed private credit investments, with major shareholder WHSP having provided $200 million in seed capital to establish the offering.
According to Pengana, global private credit is an asset class that has proven popular in recent times among institutional investors to improve portfolio diversification beyond fixed income and equity markets. The launch of the fund will open up these assets to retail investors who traditionally have been excluded from access to them.
“Many everyday investors aren’t even aware of the size of this opportunity, purely because they have never had this level of access before,” Pengana Capital Group chief executive Russel Pillemer said.
“Investing in global private credit offers several significant benefits for portfolio construction, including diversification, higher yields and lower volatility. By adding global private credit to portfolios, investors can achieve greater balance and potentially improve their risk-adjusted returns.”
The manager stated the move is in line with its philosophy of providing retail investors the chance to make portfolio allocations to institutional-grade investments. It undertook a similar initiative with the Pengana Private Equity Trust, which covers the global private equity market.
WHSP chief executive Todd Barlow expressed his excitement over the new working arrangement with Pengana.
“We are highly impressed by the portfolio’s investment strategy, the access to investments and expertise. On this basis we have made a substantial capital investment to seed the portfolio,” Barlow noted.
''