Eiffel Investment Group’s direct lending fund, a unitranche private debt fund dedicated to European SMEs, has exceeded 40 per cent deployment with a new €10.5m (£9.2m) investment in Italy.
Launched in 2024, Eiffel Impact Direct Lending (EIDL) has committed nearly €60m through seven transactions in sectors including climate engineering, healthcare, industrial goods, services and software.
Nearly half of the amounts invested have been deployed outside France, mainly in Italy, with the latest investment made in an Italian banking software publisher.
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“This seventh investment perfectly illustrates EIDL’s mission: to support European SMEs in their growth and transition projects, while integrating measurable impact objectives,” Antoine Maspétiol, head of private credit at Eiffel Investment Group, said.
“After France, Italy is becoming a major hub for our European strategy.”
The Benelux countries represent the fund’s third target geography.
In its first year, EIDL delivered an annual performance in line with its target of more than 10 per cent, with the firm attributing this to portfolio quality and “disciplined transaction selectivity”.
Eiffel has also made two appointments to the EIDL management team, hiring Paris-based Mayeul Rebaudet, who has more than 10 years of experience in private markets and strategy consulting, having structured around 15 private debt transactions at BlackRock in Paris and London.
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Fabio Rodrigues Dos Santos, who is based in Amsterdam, joins the team with responsibility for developing the firm’s private credit business in the Benelux region.
Prior to Eiffel, he spent nearly nine years at HSBC in Amsterdam and London, where he developed expertise in leveraged finance and private credit.
“The current environment offers an exceptional window of opportunity for unitranche financing of European SMEs and mid-cap companies, amid a relative pullback in traditional bank financing,” added François Serot Alméras, fund manager at Eiffel.
“Companies are seeking long-term partners capable of combining flexibility, performance and impact. This is precisely EIDL’s mission.”
