AXA IM Alts, a global firm focused on alternative investments, with €185 billion of assets under management, announces it has launched its private credit fund under the European Long-Term Investment Fund 2.0 regulation (ELTIF 2.0), which has reportedly raised more than €230 million.
The Fund, which focuses on financing private mid-sized companies, enables individual savers to access “an asset class historically reserved to institutional investors.”
With a focus on direct lending, the Fund will mainly aim to “invest directly or indirectly in non-bank loans granted to private corporates located in Europe or in a member state of the OECD.”
Loans are diversified by sector and geographical area with “attention paid to the repayment capacity of borrowers.”
Under ELTIF 2.0, the Fund provides exposure to “a diversified pool of existing loans, with periodic liquidity windows.”
The fund will benefit from AXA IM Alts’ experience, capabilities, and substantial “resources in private credit including CAPZA, with over two decades of experience, a team of 130+ investment professionals, and €92 billion in AuM.”
Historically, due to restrictive barriers, individual savers have “allocated much less to private market assets than institutional clients.”
The recent ELTIF 2.0 regulation, a fund label regime which facilitates investments in private assets for “mass affluent and wealth investors within the EU and abroad, seeks to unlock access for wider investor audiences, further driving the growth of private market solutions.”
As a key player in private markets investing and offering solutions to private wealth clients, AXA IM Alts currently “manages c. €6 billion of assets under management in evergreen private market strategies for wealth investors.”
Its goal is to continue to accelerate on private wealth segment which it has started operating “through real estate, infrastructure, and private equity funds.”
With this private credit fund launch, AXA IM Alts completes its offering across the spectrum of private market asset classes, “building on its long heritage and established track-record in that field.”
Florence Dard, Global Head of Client Group, Alts at AXA IM, commented:
“Throughout different cycles, private debt has demonstrated resilience and robustness as an asset class and has been very popular with institutional clients for more than a decade. Building on our expertise in managing evergreen private market strategies for wealth investors, we are delighted to be able to now offer a private debt fund to a retail and private wealth audience under ELTIF 2.0. Private wealth segment is a key area of growth for AXA IM Alts, and we are excited to further expand our retail offering to the dynamic private credit market and continue to address the needs of global retail and private wealth clients through the launch of this new solution.”
Christophe Fritsch, Global Head of Alternative Credit at AXA IM Alts, commented:
“We see private debt as a building block for retail private assets exposure: with its natural ability to repay and a return mostly made of cash interest payments, it naturally fits the evergreen nature of the ELTIF 2.0 structure. AXA IM Alts longstanding track-record in the asset class is now offered to private wealth investors.”
