Pictet Asset Management
The European direct lending strategy of Swiss house Pictet, writing senior and unitranche facilities of roughly £13m to £35m, with a deliberate tilt to founder-owned borrowers.
What they do
Pictet's European direct lending team originates from London, Paris and Frankfurt into a fund-level investment committee, lending senior secured and unitranche facilities to lower-mid-market companies with around €3m of EBITDA and above. Leverage is held at about four times, the gross yield target is roughly eight per cent over Euribor, and the strategy deliberately targets sponsorless founder and entrepreneur-owned deals that private-equity-focused funds overlook. Sector preference runs to business services, software and medical technology.
Where they fit in a lower-mid-market raise
At the very top of a £3–15m raise, a borrower with £2.5m to £5m of EBITDA seeking £10m to £15m is inside the strategy, and the sponsorless orientation is genuine rather than nominal. A large Swiss institution behind the fund is worth something to a board weighing counterparty durability over a five-year term.
Where they are not the fit
Typical tickets start above most of the lower-mid-market band, so a £3m to £10m requirement is below where this fund lends. Highly cyclical industrial and consumer businesses are outside the strategy. No UK borrower has been publicly named to date, so UK deployment should be tested rather than assumed.
Published terms
- Pricing
- Gross yield target Euribor + c.8%. LMM spreads relatively stable (~20bps compression); core/upper-mid <600bps, some large deals 450-500bps over base. No per-deal margin published for the smallest tickets
- Speed to terms
- Not published
- EBITDA floor
- From about £2.6m (€3m published)
- Leverage
- Senior to 4x, total to 4x
- Sponsored or sponsorless
- Both - deliberate tilt to sponsorless or founder- and entrepreneur-owned deals overlooked by private equity-focused funds
- Where they lend
- Pan-European; UK in scope with London-headed team, plus France (Paris) and DACH (Frankfurt). Public deals to date FR/DE/CH; no named UK borrower found
- How they decide
- Local origination teams in UK/France/DACH feeding a fund-level investment committee; cadence not published
- Security
- A debenture over the company
- Covenants
- Maintenance covenants, tested every period
As published by the lender and last reviewed August 2026. Terms quoted on a deal are set by the credit, not by a published band.
The desks that lend
Pictet Asset Management lends through 2 separate books. Which one reads a deal decides the security, the covenant package and the band, so the question is rarely whether Pictet Asset Management lends, but which of these would own it.
European direct lending (senior secured)
- Facility
- £13m to £35m
- Security
- A debenture over the company
- Covenants
- Maintenance covenants, tested every period
- Funds
- Acquisition · Growth · MBO · Refinance
- Rules out
- Highly cyclical sectors; Below-band ticket sizes (sub-€15m)
European direct lending (unitranche)
- Facility
- £13m to £34m
- Security
- A debenture over the company
- Covenants
- Maintenance covenants, tested every period
- Funds
- Acquisition · Growth · MBO · Refinance
- Rules out
- Highly cyclical sectors; Below-band ticket sizes (sub-€15m)
Limits that apply across the firm
Stated limits, taken from Pictet Asset Management’s own published criteria, beyond the ones each desk carries above. A limit is where a lender starts from, not where it always ends: several of these move on a strong enough credit.
- No appetite in cyclical consumer, cyclical industrial or highly cyclical industrial
How they sit against the category
- Its published ceiling is £35m; 12 of the 46 private-credit funds here go at least as high.
- 15 of the 46 publish an indicative price at all; it is one of them.
Counted across the 46 private-credit & direct-lending funds in this directory, on what each one publishes. What a lender discloses and what it will do are different things.
Questions this page answers
How large a facility does Pictet Asset Management write?
Published facilities run £13m to £35m. It looks for EBITDA from about £2.6m (€3m published). Published leverage runs senior to 4x, total to 4x. A band is what a lender states it will do, not what it will do on a given credit.
What security does Pictet Asset Management take?
On the published terms, a debenture over the company. What a lender takes on a given facility is set in the documents, not by a published stance.
Does Pictet Asset Management lend to companies without a private-equity sponsor?
Yes. Pictet Asset Management lends to owner-managed and sponsor-backed borrowers alike, so a company with no private-equity backer is not out of scope on that ground.
Where does Pictet Asset Management lend?
Pan-European; UK in scope with London-headed team, plus France (Paris) and DACH (Frankfurt). Public deals to date FR/DE/CH; no named UK borrower found.
What covenants does Pictet Asset Management set?
Maintenance covenants, tested every period. A covenant package is negotiated on the facility; the published style is where the negotiation starts.
On the record
October 2024: Senior term loan for secondary buy-out of Swiss cleaning & facility-management services company (am.pictet.com strategy details.
September 2023: Debt financing for acquisition of French software co Liciel Environnement by Enersweet (Private Equity Wire.
October 2023: First close of Pictet European Direct Lending I at EUR200m (Article 8) (Private Equity Wire/funds-europe/Citywire.
August 2023: Growth financing to MLase AG, German manufacturing (Private Equity Wire.
Sources: am.pictet.com
This profile is a curated reference note drawn from public sources, not financial advice or a recommendation. Appetite and terms change; a lender's fit for a given credit is established by approaching it, not inferred from a page.