Lone Star usurps Apollo at top of PDI 30

A year on from Private Debt Investor’s inaugural ranking of private debt fund managers, and while the global alternative lending market has developed enormously, there’s a ring of familiarity to the second PDI 30 list.

Based on a simple metric – the amount of capital raised over the last five years for discreet private debt strategies – the ranking provides insight into the capital raising success of the top firms.

Many of the managers we speak to trumpet their ambitions to build scale, and the firms featured in this list have certainly done that, particularly at the top end. The very largest firms manage vast portfolios of assets, dwarfing those firms rounding out the list. It’s unsurprising that the variation between the top and bottom of the list is so much greater than in similar rankings produced by our sister titles focused on private equity, infrastructure and real estate, simply because the asset class is that much younger.

The top three is dominated by distressed debt specialists, who have profited greatly from the economic crisis. All three have been active buyers of non performing loan portfolios and other distressed assets, capitalising on the deleveraging process underway within the global banking community.

It’s also interesting to note that there are still relatively few European-headquartered managers in the top 30, and still no Asia-Pacific firms. M&G Investments remains the leading European manager, breaking into the top 5 this year, while AXA Group also places highly.

For the detailed ranking and full analysis of the findings, please click HERE.