Prestige launches direct lending fund for UK & Ireland agri businesses
Prestige Fund Management (Prestige) to launch direct lending fund focusing on agricultural and SME businesses in both UK and Ireland.
A Luxembourg based SICAV fund called Prime Alternative Finance (Prime), will be managed by Prestige Capital Management in Malta.
Prime is the first direct lending fund to be launched by Prestige that will have the mandate to invest in UK and Ireland. Prestige’s existing direct lending funds have focused entirely on the UK to date (although the wider Prestige business has significant experience lending in Northern Ireland and several team members were previously employed by Allied Irish Bank).
The fund will provide agricultural/SME loan finance for ‘on farm energy’ related projects as well as asset finance related opportunities. Prestige estimates that Prime will have £300-400m of potential deal flow opportunities over the next several years. Through its investment in a dedicated UK based, agricultural specialist Finance Arranger which has existed for almost 18 years and has conducted approximately 15,000 loans to 6,000 loan customers,
It will operate with monthly liquidity and will be targeting returns of 5-7% per annum (depending on share class and currency) and has no performance fee. There are three main share classes available: advisory and institutional accumulation classes and an institutional distribution class. Share classes are denominated in GBP / USD / EUR / SEK and CHF.
