Over €280m raised in first round funding by DunPort for Elm Corporate Credit DAC
Over €280m raised in first round funding by DunPort for Elm Corporate Credit DAC
Supporting Irish SMEs and mid-sized corporates to scale and grow
DunPort Capital Management acting as lending vehicle manager
DunPort Capital Management (DunPort) has today announced the close of a €283m funding round for Elm Corporate Credit DAC, an SME and mid-sized corporate focused credit vehicle. Elm has secured commitments from a number of domestic institutional investors.
The Elm vehicle will be managed by DunPort, a specialist asset manager established by co-founders Pat Walsh and Ross Morrow and supported by three Dublin based investment professionals; Aidan Lynch, David Gilbane and Ross Pender.
Through the Elm vehicle, DunPort will seek to provide flexible debt capital solutions for SMEs and mid-sized corporates across Ireland. It will seek to provide debt capital to support businesses across a wide range of sectors generating revenues in excess of €5m that require debt to fund scaling of their activities through investment and development expenditure, acquisitions, recapitalisations or to resolve legacy financing issues.
The DunPort team have a demonstrated track record of providing holistic financing solutions across the entire capital structure, having completed 35 transactions, with a combined value of €420m, with 23 borrowers through the platform formerly known as BlueBay Ireland Corporate Credit I DAC “BICC” since 2013. The DunPort team aims to continue to offer borrowers bespoke financing solutions allied with responsiveness and access to decision makers.
Pat Walsh, Executive Director of DunPort said: “Over the past five years, we have seen sustained and robust demand from a wide range of Irish businesses for flexible debt solutions. We look forward to continuing to provide companies with capital that will allow them to grow their businesses on a non-dilutive basis. As a locally owned, managed and funded non-bank credit platform, we look forward to continuing our strong relationship with our institutional investors and our network of intermediaries and advisors to continue to provide alternative debt capital to Irish SMEs and mid-sized corporates”.
Ross Morrow, Executive Director of DunPort added: “We are delighted to have reached first close within our expected timescale. We are in active discussions with a number of potential borrowers and we are looking forward to building on the track record of BICC as Ireland’s leading alternative debt capital provider”.
About DunPort
DunPort Capital Management DAC was founded in 2017 by Pat Walsh and Ross Morrow, the former executives of BlueBay Asset Management (“BlueBay”) responsible for establishing and developing the Irish direct lending platform through BICC which has now been renamed 77GSL Corporate Credit. DunPort will continue to advise BlueBay on its management of BICC’s existing portfolio of SME borrowers. For more information visit www.dunportcapital.com