Janus Henderson Group Plc has agreed to buy Victory Park Capital Advisors in a bid to expand in the fast-growing private credit market, particularly asset-based finance.
Victory Park, which has $6 billion of assets under management, will add to Janus Henderson's $36 billion securitized asset business, which is currently based on liquid products, according to a statement reviewed by Bloomberg News.
Through the transaction, the asset manager would get exposure to more esoteric private financings related to anything from consumer debt to music royalties.
"We have a very strong fixed income business, and a very strong public securitized business," Ali Dibadj, Janus Henderson's chief executive officer, said in an interview.
He said the acquisition will provide "much more differentiated access, as a firm, to some of these assets that are sitting behind public and private deals."
A Changing Industry
Janus Henderson is the latest in a string of large asset managers that have struck deals to expand in the fast growing, $1.7 trillion private credit market.
That industry is much larger when accounting for asset-based finance, where private credit funds extend debt against streams of contractual cash flows that are tied to a defined pool of assets. That can be anything from real estate to auto loans and equipment leasing debt.
With competition increasing in direct lending, which is corporate debt tied typically to leveraged buyouts, investors are looking to other areas of private credit for yield.
Asset-based finance has attracted strong interest from private credit funds, which have taken advantage of the regional bank retrenchment. The debt's investment-grade type structure is also an attractive selling point for insurance companies looking to diversify their allocations.
