(Reuters) – Superannuation fund AustralianSuper said on Wednesday it has increased the program size of its partnership with U.S.-based Churchill Asset Management to $1.5 billion, in an effort to increase investments in the private credit market.
The investment programme, which started with an initial installment of $250 million in 2022, targets senior and unitranche loans to private equity-backed U.S. mid-size companies.
AustralianSuper has over $4.5 billion invested in private credit globally, and aims to triple its exposure in the coming years through a mix of direct lending via its in-house private credit team and strategic partnerships with specialist managers.
Churchill is an investment-specialist affiliate of American asset manager Nuveen, which itself is a unit of financial planning firm TIAA.
“We believe the current environment is especially appealing to increase our investments in private credit,” AustralianSuper Head of Private Credit Nick Ward said.
(Reporting by Archishma Iyer in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri and Shinjini Ganguli)
