Seeking attractive risk-adjusted returns with private corporate debt

We offer pan-European and North American investments in corporate debt. We focus primarily on mid-market issuers, or those that prefer club/syndicated deals with a few institutional investors. 

We source opportunities across a diverse investment universe, typically for buy-and-hold investments. We invest in investment-grade or crossover small and mid-market firms from a variety of sectors, with maturities ranging between five and ten years. 

The strength and depth of our credit research team provides robust governance, and our disciplined investment process incorporates environmental, social and governance criteria throughout the life of the assets.

Why invest?

Senior private corporate debt can help investors diversify exposures while delivering attractive risk-adjusted returns. Given the asymmetric risk profile of debt investing, our investment philosophy centres on managing downside risk, so we lend against core assets with asset security. Strong financial covenants are integral to our approach, and we avoid highly subordinated debt positions.

Risk-adjusted return potential

Carefully sourced and structured senior debt has the potential to generate higher yields without unduly increasing risk, helping investors improve their overall risk-adjusted returns.

Diversification

Because it is not listed, private corporate debt offers differentiation from public market instruments. Portfolio values also remain more stable over time, allowing investors to focus on the long term.

Illiquidity premium

The illiquid nature of the assets typically commands a premium over comparable listed credit. 

Key risks of private corporate debt

Investment risk

The value of an investment and any income from it can go down as well as up. Investors may not get back the original amount invested.

Illiquidity risk

Certain assets could, by nature, be hard to value or to sell at a desired time or at a price considered to be fair (especially in large quantities), and as a result their prices could be very volatile.

Complexity risk

Assessing risk implications of multi-layered transactions is challenging.

Investment insights

Investment thinking that brings together the collective insight of Aviva Investors’ teams from across the globe on the key themes influencing markets.

Views

Private Markets Study

Private Markets Study 2025

In the seventh edition of the study, we collected the views of 500 institutional investors around the world. We delved into some of the key questions facing private market investors today: Why do they invest in private markets? How do they expect the asset classes to perform over the next few years? What are the biggest barriers to investing today? And how do they incorporate sustainability?

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House View

House View

No one can predict the future. But our quarterly House View sets out the collective wisdom of our investment teams on the current state of global markets – and where they might be heading.

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Illiquidity premia in private debt

Having crunched the data, our private markets research team looks at how evolving macro conditions are impacting private debt returns.

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Private corporate debt team

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Private markets

As one of Europe’s largest private markets investment managers, we have the scale to access the full depth and breadth of private markets.

Private debt

We finance bespoke structured finance and senior private corporate debt transactions, seeking to meet a range of client outcomes.