A series of multi-billion-dollar fund launches by the world’s biggest private credit fund managers helped private credit reach new heights in 2024, while the early signs suggest that 2025 will be another record-breaking year for the sector.
In January this year, Ares Management launched the largest institutionally funded direct lending fund on the market, with €30bn (£25.4bn) committed. Meanwhile, Allianz Global Investors announced the final close of the global Allianz Private Debt Secondaries Fund (APDS) at €1.5bn – outstripping its initial target of €500m.
This followed the success of a multitude of billion-dollar-plus launches in the back half of 2024.
In September 2024, global alternative asset manager Intermediate Capital Group (ICG) raised $17bn (£13.8bn) for the latest fund in its flagship direct lending strategy, exceeding its $11bn target. Around the same time, Park Square Capital reported that it had raised €3.4bn for the final close of its latest European direct lending fund, a 50 per cent increase from the previous vintage.
The following month, Blackstone announced the close of the first series of its evergreen institutional US direct lending fund with $22bn raised, comfortably beating its $10bn target.
Silver Point Capital raised more than $8.5bn (£6.7bn) for its third direct lending fund which was launched in November, taking the amount of investable capital the group has available for the strategy up to $15bn.
And in December, Triton announced the closing of its third private debt fund, having exceeded its €1bn fundraising target.
The popularity of these raises suggests that private credit funds may have surpassed their own stellar performance in the first half of 2024.
According to PitchBook data, private debt funds closed $90.8bn in the first half of 2024, although this total was expected to top $200bn, once all late closings had been reported.
However, there are fears that the space is becoming dominated by a handful of larger players who are fundraising in the billions rather than millions. This could leave smaller players out in the cold and struggling to compete for institutional funds in the year ahead.
