Tanarra raises $217m for Asia Pacific credit fund

LP commitments came from superannuation funds and other institutional investors, as well as from high net worth individuals. Unisuper made a cornerstone investment for a managed account that will focus on sub-investment grade secured loan opportunities in Australia and New Zealand, Bloomberg reported.

Tanarra’s primary objective is to fill a gap in the financing market created by banks’ reduced appetite for risk-weighted assets as they deal with increased capital requirements. “Banks are really starting to pull back and the capital charges are really kicking in, which makes it pretty fertile ground for investors chasing private credit,” said Michael Tierney, a managing partner with the firm.

Tierney, formerly head of leveraged and acquisition finance for Credit Suisse in Asia Pacific, joined Tanarra at the end of last year with Peter Szekely, who previously worked for ANZ and Standard Chartered. The firm was founded in 2015 by investment banker John Wylie after he departed Lazard. Tanarra also has a PE arm that manages investments originally made by Lazard Australia Private Equity in companies like Skybridge and 2XU.

The firm has offices in Melbourne, Sydney and Hong Kong. The majority of the fund will be invested in Australia and New Zealand, with about one third earmarked for other markets in the region.

The emergence of Tanarra coincides with what has been described as the institutionalization of the Australian private debt market as funds have begun to eat into domestic banks’ dominance of the transaction financing space. Some of the major non-bank lenders have helped drive this momentum with the growing adoption of unitranche facilities that combine senior and mezzanine facilities into a single structure.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Credit/Special Situations
• Fundraising
• Australia
• Special Situations
• Tanarra