GSC corrals €420m for European CDO vehicle

US-based alternative assets management firm GSC Partners has closed its latest collateralised debt obligation fund, GSC European CDO Fund III, with €420 million ($538 million) of commitments.

GSC European CDO Fund III will target investments in European leveraged loans, focusing predominantly on senior secured loans. The fund will also invest in European second lien loans, mezzanine loans and high yield bonds.

Christine Vanden Beukel, senior managing director of GSC Partners, said in a release that investments will focus on issuers with “strong, defensible market positions in manufacturing, services and media and an enterprise value of €150 million or greater”.

The new vehicle is the twelfth collateralised debt obligation fund GSC Partners has raised since April 2000, of which nine have focused on the US.

Peter Firth, a managing director at GSC Partners, is principal portfolio manager of the new fund, which will sit within the firm’s corporate credit group. Firth will be supported by the same team that manage the previous two European CDO funds, according to the firm.

Last month, GSC Partners completed a €1 billion fundraising for its second European mezzanine fund, GSC European Mezzanine Fund II. Predecessor vehicle, Fund I, closed with €765 million of equity capital in October 2001, with an additional €300 million credit facility added in early 2002.

Headquartered in New Jersey, with offices in New York, Los Angeles and London, GSC Partners has $10.7 billion of assets under management.