Shard Credit Partners
A pure-play UK lower-mid-market direct lender writing £5m to £15m of unitranche, stretched senior, second lien and mezzanine debt, explicitly to sponsorless as well as sponsored borrowers.
What they do
Shard Credit Partners lends bilaterally to UK companies from committed institutional funds, with an in-house investment team and its own credit committee. Facilities span senior unitranche, stretched senior, second lien, mezzanine and payment-in-kind structures, typically for borrowers from around £1m of EBITDA and enterprise values below roughly £50m. Cash and payment-in-kind interest can be mixed, including a pay-if-you-can toggle, and the fund has completed around eleven primary investments with some thirty bolt-on acquisitions behind them.
Where they fit in a lower-mid-market raise
The buy-and-build pattern is where this lender is strongest: a platform company funded once, then supported through a series of bolt-ons without renegotiating the whole structure each time. Sponsorless borrowers are explicitly in scope, and the flexibility between cash and payment-in-kind helps a business whose cash generation is lumpy while it integrates acquisitions.
Where they are not the fit
Stressed, distressed and turnaround situations are outside the mandate, and the borrower must be UK-based with at least £1m of EBITDA. Unitranche economics apply, so this is materially dearer than bank senior debt, and equity upside in the form of warrants may form part of the return.
Published terms
- Pricing
- As bps; flexible cash-pay + PIK (PIK-toggle, pay-if-you-can); targets superior risk-adjusted returns with meaningful equity upside. Likely ~650-900bps+ equiv for unitranche
- Speed to terms
- Not published
- EBITDA floor
- From about £1m
- Sponsored or sponsorless
- Both - explicitly targets sponsored AND sponsorless (founder/management-owned)
- Where they lend
- UK companies only (borrower-located)
- How they decide
- Bilateral direct lender; in-house investment team + internal an investment committee; Shard Capital AIFM; Channel Capital (GCC)-anchored expansion
- Security
- A debenture over the company
- Covenants
- Maintenance covenants, tested every period; A loose covenant package, by facility
As published by the lender and last reviewed July 2026. Terms quoted on a deal are set by the credit, not by a published band.
The desks that lend
Shard Credit Partners 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 Shard Credit Partners lends, but which of these would own it.
Senior secured unitranche / stretched senior
- Facility
- £5m to £15m
- Security
- A debenture over the company
- Covenants
- Maintenance covenants, tested every period
- Funds
- Acquisition · Growth · MBO · Refinance
- Rules out
- No stressed/distressed/turnaround; UK borrowers only; EBITDA below £1m
Second lien / mezzanine / PIK
- Facility
- £5m to £15m
- Security
- Subordinated or share pledge
- Covenants
- A loose covenant package
- Funds
- Acquisition · Growth · MBO · Refinance
- Rules out
- No turnaround/distressed
Limits that apply across the firm
Stated limits, taken from Shard Credit Partners’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 adult, gambling or weapons
How they sit against the category
- Its published ceiling is £15m; 25 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 Shard Credit Partners write?
Published facilities run £5m to £15m. It looks for EBITDA from about £1m. A band is what a lender states it will do, not what it will do on a given credit.
What security does Shard Credit Partners 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 Shard Credit Partners lend to companies without a private-equity sponsor?
Yes. Shard Credit Partners 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 Shard Credit Partners lend?
Shard Credit Partners lends in UK companies only (borrower-located).
What covenants does Shard Credit Partners set?
Maintenance covenants, tested every period; A loose covenant package, by facility. A covenant package is negotiated on the facility; the published style is where the negotiation starts.
On the record
December 2024: Fund I investee JST Ports & Logistics transformational acquisition (shardcreditpartners.com.
2025: launched £75m Venture Debt Fund I, first close (shardcapital.com.
2025: secured investment from Channel Capital for GCC expansion (channelcapital.io.
Sources: shardcreditpartners.com · privateequityinternational.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.