AVANA and funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management formed a new $250 million AVANA-Oaktree Private Credit Partnership (AOPCP) for its direct private commercial real estate lending strategy. Through the Joint Venture (JV), AVANA will use the capital to provide private debt financing in the United States over the next three years.
“Oaktree has firsthand experience through past partnerships with AVANA,” Justin Guichard, Managing Director and Co-Portfolio Manager at Oaktree. “The AVANA team’s unparalleled expertise and reputation in the CRE lending industry aligns with our focus on risk control in private credit investments.”
“We meet with every business owner we have lent to; it is important to us to put a name and a face to a loan as part of our due diligence, credit underwriting and risk mitigation,” Sanat Patel, chief lending officer and co-founder of AVANA, said. “Our ability to build capital for a better tomorrow lies in our team’s deep-rooted history in lending and the trust we have in our partners at Oaktree.”
“After 22 years of working within the CRE industry and SMEs, we recognize the challenges of this tight lending environment and that’s why we are challenging our team to lend $250MM in the first year,” Sundip Patel, CEO and co-founder of AVANA, said. “This capital from Oaktree enables us to multiply our social impact exponentially, offering financing opportunities to entrepreneurs and supporting financial inclusion.”