StepStone Group, a global private markets investment firm, closed StepStone Senior Corporate Lending II (SCL II), raising $1.3 billion of commitments, surpassing its target of $1 billion.
Through SCL II, StepStone seeks to invest in post-COVID-19 vintage, senior secured, first-lien performing corporate loans. The portfolio will be diversified across geographies, managers and single loan positions. Flexible allocations allow the fund to allocate to GPs with the strongest pipelines.
The fund attracted a broad and diverse group of investors with support from existing investors and new investors to StepStone’s private debt platform.
“The low-rate environment has been one of the leading factors behind the rise of private debt as an asset class. We are grateful for the strong support of our limited partners,” Stephan Tscheulin, private debt partner at StepStone, said. “Their enthusiasm is a testament to our team, which has invested through multiple credit cycles and strong relationships with GPs.”
SCL II benefits from StepStone’s private debt platform, which provides efficient access to a global pool of GPs and enables the Fund to ramp up quickly and pickup yield through opportunistic investments.
“We believe our abilities to identify top-tier managers, source investments through our private debt platform’s broad base of GP relationships and co-invest and execute through the secondary market are strong differentiators,” Marcel Schindler, head of private debt at StepStone, said. “We believe private debt has the potential to generate strong risk-adjusted returns in any interest rate environment. We look forward to endeavoring to deliver the performance our limited partners expect and building on the success of our predecessor fund.”
