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Josie Shillito

9Questions is our Q&A series featuring key decision-makers in the corporate credit markets — get in touch if you know who we should be talking to!

When it comes to private credit funds, most people will think illiquid and closed ended. However, there is a large and growing proportion of open-ended private credit funds that are perpetually live and where investors can exit, within parameters, when they want. Partners Group’s Christopher Bone talks 9fin’s Josie Shillito through it. 

1. You operate an evergreen private credit fund. Is evergreen synonymous with open ended?

We have several evergreen funds on the Partners Group private debt platform. The largest is €1.5bn in size and, we think, the oldest private debt evergreen fund in Europe. Evergreen means there is no final maturity and that we’re continuously re-investing. In this sense, it needs to be open ended.

We always had evergreen structures on the private equity side, and this was popular with clients, so it made a lot of sense simply thought we’d try to do this on the private debt side too. However, in the last two-to-three years, uptake of the strategy has increased significantly.

I’d say it’s a reflection of the diversity of investors that we’re now seeing in private credit and the asset class opening up to new audiences. Some investors prefer not to deal with capital calls in traditional drawdown structures or require an element of liquidity versus longer lock-ups. Our product provides this.

4. What are the advantages of evergreen?

In a closed-ended fund, investors are faced with the fund winding down during the harvest period. But the reality is that there’s often a tail of assets towards the end of a fund's life, which require more time to exit. For pension fund investors that really matters. This is not the case with an open-ended fund, where you achieve full investment into a diversified pool of assets on day one, remain fully invested during your hold period, and have the ability to redeem if such liquidity is required.

5. How do valuations work if the money comes in and out?

Our open-ended fund is third-party valued. We do that on a monthly basis. Naturally, this does bring an element of price volatility to the fund, but much less than you would see in an open-ended syndicated loan / high yield bond portfolio. Our open-ended evergreen, for example, has been priced at around 96 on average recently, which also creates potential for capital appreciation for new investors.

We maintain 10-20% of the fund in more liquid positions such as in syndicated loans and high-yield bonds, or alternatives such as cash.

In an open-ended fund, your portfolio has exposure to many vintages versus a closed-end fund with a set investment period of around three or four years. Our flagship open-ended fund has been investing since 2016. This bolsters diversification.

With an open-ended fund, you are taking diversified, global risk across investments made over the equivalent of many closed-end fund vintages, which have predefined investment periods. In a sense, you’re taking market risk on a particular asset class — direct lending. But with a closed-ended fund, you are looking at taking risks on certain vintages of the market, the net return of year xyz, for example.

9. Am I right in thinking an open-ended structure would be suitable for the retail investor market?

Our evergreen products across all asset classes are currently only available to professional or qualified private investors. These structures often favour the profile of private investors and we expect them to grow in popularity as more people look at the private markets opportunity set. 

At Partners Group, we think it's crucial that investors understand the features of evergreen products, including any gating mechanisms, before investing. We therefore organise inhouse academies and hold education sessions with advisors on a regular basis to ensure they have a good understanding of each asset class and our products. Our ability to build a well-informed investor base with an aligned long-term outlook has contributed to the fact that we have never gated one of our evergreen flagships.

9Questions — Christopher Bone, Partners Group — Make it evergreen

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