Barings, one of the world’s leading investment managers, today announced that it is executing the first European middle market private credit CLO, Barings Euro Middle Market CLO 2024-1 DAC, at €380 million. S&P and Fitch will rate the CLO, which is backed by a portfolio of European middle market senior secured loans. Year to date Barings has priced 12 new issue CLOs globally.
Barings Euro Middle Market CLO, a diversified EU private credit CLO, is the first of its kind in the market and is a combined effort of Barings’ Global CLO team and Barings’ Global Private Finance Group. Barings’ $52 billion Global CLO team is one of the largest and longest tenured in the industry with more than 25 years of experience originating, managing, and investing in CLOs. Barings’ Global Private Finance team has a track record of over 30 years as a leader in the private credit market. Both teams selected the initial assets and will be managing the portfolio.
Adrienne Butler, Head of Global CLOs at Barings said, “As an experienced leader in the market, Barings is proud and excited to be a first mover in the evolution of CLOs in Europe. To date, the difficulty in creating a diversified portfolio has prevented a true middle market CLO from being executed in Europe. We have noted investor interest in this space for several years and having issued seven US middle market CLOs since 2017, Barings has the knowledge and expertise to provide a solution in this untapped area of the market.”
Joe Evanchick, Head of Middle Market CLOs at Barings, said, “Due to Barings being a leading European direct lender, we were able to create a diversified portfolio of nearly 50 private credit loans representing eight countries, in addition to a European broadly syndicated loan bucket to add to the diversification. Our extensive sponsor relationships resulted in the Barings European Private Credit platform closing over €13 billion across 153 senior transactions with 64 different sponsors in the last three years.”
Stuart Mathieson, Head of European and APAC private credit at Barings, said “Barings Euro Middle Market CLO combines decades of experience as a leader in the middle market direct lending space with our strong track record in issuing US middle market CLOs to bring an innovative solution to our clients.”
Barings Euro Middle Market CLO is a static deal with a one-year non-call period. BNP Paribas served as the arranger.
Dushy Puvan, Head of EMEA CLOs at BNP Paribas said, “This transaction represents the strength of the full Global CLO franchise of BNP Paribas and we are delighted to have worked with Barings to bring about this important inaugural European Middle Market CLO”.
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