ICG-Longbow has made a first close of £364m on its latest mezzanine loan fund and added a second £250m vintage to its senior loan programme.
The successful raising comes after a strong beginning of the year for the business during which it deployed £375m over 18 deals by the end of April.
The second tranche of the senior loan programme also came after the company had deployed the first vintage of £400m by the end of 2014, marking a successful entry into a competitive market for the lender.
Longbow did not reveal the target returns of the funds, but its second whole loan fund, which is in the process of returning assets to investors, has managed to achieve IRRs of around 20%.
The two closes come as the debt fund expands its asset classes outside its traditional lending space. Longbow has also extended a joint venture that has raised more than £200m for development finance projects across the UK, of which £41m has already been deployed.
Longbow said that the last year’s strong rate of investment had allowed it to deploy its capital at a faster rate than ever before. Of the two new raisings, 50% of fund IV and 40% of the new senior capital had been deployed by the end of April.
Longbow, now a wholly owned subsidiary of Intermediate Capital Group, will continue to raise capital for both the ICG Longbow Fund IV and senior debt programme.
