ICG reports bumper year

Intermediate Capital Group’s (ICG) fee-earning assets under management (AUM) jumped 39 percent year-on-year (y-o-y) to €18 billion, the private debt manager said today (20 May). The group will continue to launch new strategies and expand its offerings to investors, chief executive, Christophe Evain said, noting that diversified managers with significant scale are a more compelling alternatives proposition for investors. 

Impairments at the firm also fell significantly y-o-y to £37.6 million ($58.5 million; €52.6 million), from £112.4 million. Evain noted that none of ICG’s post-crisis assets are impaired. 

On the returns side, the firm showed that most vehicles were in-line with or ahead of IRR or money multiple targets. 

Evain said that the firm was delighted with the rapid pace of fundraising for its two flagship European funds, mezzanine vehicle Europe Fund VI, which reached a first close of €2.5 billion in April and Senior Debt Partners II, its €3 billion second direct lending vehicle. Evain said during an analyst’s presentation that SDP II had raised as much money in six months as the debut vehicle raised in 18 months. 

ICG-Longbow, the firm’s UK real estate debt unit, also contributed strongly to the €6.4 billion in fundraising with €1.32 billion of the total, roughly equally split between the unit’s funds and segregated mandates. 

The firm’s profit before tax, at £184.1 million was up less than £10 million y-o-y, as last year’s results had included the realisation of the firm’s largest balance sheet investment. The board announced a £300 million special dividend for 2015 and the full year ordinary dividend increased 4.8 percent to 22 pence per share. 

Return on equity hit 11 percent, up from 10.2 percent 12 months ago. Over the last 12 months, ICG continued to gear its balance sheet and added £463 million in extra credit lines. The firm is guiding future gearing at 0.8x to 1.2x to help it achieve its return on equity target of over 13 percent.